Cape Town - Oscar Pistorius has distanced himself from an incident where a horse, against which he raced in Doha on Wednesday evening, was “excessively whipped”.
The 26-year-old double amputee athlete raced against an Arabian horse, named Maserati, over 200m to promote disabled sports people and fight discrimination in the region.
But the manner in which Maserati was handled by his rider drew the scorn of Allan Perrins, the Cape of Good Hope SPCA’s chief executive who lodged a formal complaint.
“I have viewed the video… the horse, it would appear, was excessively, unnecessarily and cruelly whipped from start to finish (in fact, even before the race started) whilst being held back by the jockey,” Perrins wrote to Pistorius’s team.
Pistorius responded, saying: “I participated in the race in good faith as it was to promote abilities across sport. I was totally unaware of any alleged excessive force being used on the horse. I don’t condone any ill-treatment of animals…,” he said.