Dressage team bloopers in Daily Mirror and Daily Express
The picture desks of two national red-tops should be hanging their heads in shame this morning after headlines trumpeting Team GBR’s dressage gold appeared over pictures of the Dutch team.
The Mirror printed a giant picture of Edward Gal, Anky Van Grunsven and Adelinde Cornelissen under the banner “Only Golden Horses”.
And the Daily Express also printed a picture of the grinning Dutch trio on its front page, under the headline “Happy and Glorious”.
However the only gold in the pictures is the Dutch team’s collars.
The pictures should, of course, have shown the gold medal-winning Brits – Carl Hester, Laura Bechtolsheimer and Charlotte Dujardin.
“You’d think they could tell the difference between red and orange,” said a disgusted Winnie Murphy of British Dressage, who branded the coverage “sloppy” and “offensive”.
“We dress our riders in beautiful red, white and blue uniforms – isn’t that enough of a clue for them?”
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The Express has apologised to the British Equestrian Federation and reprinted its front page, with the correct picture.
And Express editor Hugh Whittow asked British Dressage to pass on his apologies to the riders.
He said the mix-up took place after a picture agency mis-captioned the pictures it sent out.
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A self-confessed newshound, farmer’s daughter and journalist of many years' experience, Charlotte worked on regional papers before joining H&H in 2007. A regular rider, she visited Ireland in 2010 to investigate the fate of Irish horses through the recession, to much acclaim, and reported from the FEI General Assembly in Rio de Janeiro in 2011. She left Horse & Hound in March 2013.