More than 150,000 people have emailed the International Olympic Committee as part of the animal rights group PETA’s joint global campaign to ban all horse competitions at future Games in light of scandals involving leg whipping and other problems related to the treatment of horses.

PETA organizations in Asia, Australia, France, Germany, India, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States, representing a total of over nine million members and supporters, officially called on the IOC to remove equestrian events from the Olympic Games.

Australian Chris Burton unexpectedly won a silver medal in the eventing competition in Paris, continuing Australia’s long tradition of equestrian success at the Olympic Games.

But one of Britain’s leading riders, Charlotte Dujardin, has been barred from competing in Paris after a video emerged showing her repeatedly hitting a horse during a training session. She has also been suspended for six months by the International Equestrian Federation and by the British Equestrian Federation, which will bar her from international and national events.

But PETA representatives pointed to at least five other cases of alleged mistreatment of horses by Olympic athletes in various countries in their call for a ban and called on the IOC to take action.

In a letter to the IOC, PETA denounced the “deep-rooted abuses associated with forcing horses to perform” and said this “justifies exclusion from the Olympic Games.”

“Colombian-American Olympic coach and former equestrian Cesar Parra was filmed whipping one horse and tying the head of another,” the letter said.

“Swiss Olympian Martin Fuchs whipped a visibly frightened horse that refused to jump over a fence.

“The horse of Canadian Eric Lamaze fell dead during a show jumping competition in the stadium.

“German Olympian Ludger Beerbaum was caught ‘blocking’ a horse.

“New Zealand Olympian Sir Mark Todd repeatedly hit a reluctant horse with a thick branch.

“The abuse is deeply rooted and all efforts to eradicate it have failed.”

The governing body of modern pentathlon, the Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne, has ended the equestrian sport following widespread public outrage over the whipping and beating of a horse at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.

However, it was reintroduced at the Paris Games.

PETA claims that equestrian events are the only Olympic sports in which the athletes – the horses – are forced to participate “through violence and coercion.”

“Oppressing animals and forcing them to perform dangerous and unnatural acts is contrary to the physical superiority and harmony among willing human competitors that characterize the rest of the Olympic competition,” the letter concludes.

After serving her Olympic ban, Dujardin said in a statement on social media that what happened was “totally out of character for me and does not reflect how I train my horses.”

“There is no excuse,” she added.

“I am deeply ashamed and should have set a better example in that moment.”