A complaint filed in Nice for a mare violently beaten in Levens

In the videos, widely shared on social media last weekend, we see a man and a woman violently beating a petrified mare by kicking it and hitting it with a stick, to try to get it to go into a lorry. The footage is unbearable, and the blows are so brutal that you can even hear the crack of the wood hitting the mare’s face and neck, who is completely terrified. According to witnesses at the scene, a shovel was even smashed on the animal’s head in the face of such persecution.

Mistreatment committed by a professional who would not be at his trial run...

How astonished we were to learn that the perpetrators were none other than a director of the equestrian centre and the animal’s owner! Since the announcement of our complaint being filed for acts of cruelty, serious abuse, and mistreatment by a professional (an aggravated circumstance), we have received several reports from former riders, witnesses of mistreatment toward the horses in this establishment.

In fact, these unbearable actions are not just a recent occurrence: there have been years of this, and for several minutes, a pony was hit on the head with a horse ball to the point where the straps broke open the bridge of her nose, going so far as to cause bleeding.

Hitting an animal is never acceptable

The Levens Mayor himself, who explained that he intervened and managed to load the mare calmly and without resorting to force into another truck a few minutes after all of this, testified to Nice-Matin: “This is not the first time that we have had problems with him. It’s crazy, it’s a scandal... We are behind the associations; we will support the complaints that will be filed.”

For this mare, we have filed a complaint for acts of cruelty, serious abuse, and mistreatment committed by a professional (an aggravating factor) on a domestic animal, tame or kept in captivity. So that justice can be done in this sordid matter, we are here to listen to any witness statement by persons present at the horse festival in Levens on Saturday 29 July when this happened.

Translated from the French by Joely Justice