Italy Legally Recognizes Horses as Athletes

Italy has become the first and only country in the world to recognize the horse as an athlete within its legal system.

The legislative decree better known as the Sports Reform introduced major changes to the way sports organizations treat horses in equestrian sports. This shift, not just legal but also managerial, scientific, and cultural, inspired experts to publish The Horse Athlete: Protections and Perspectives as part of the legal journal ‘Diritto dello Sport’ (sports law), supported by the Carlo Rizzoli Foundation and the Italian Equestrian Sports Federation (FISE) and presented on Friday, June 6, in Rome at Palazzo Madama, home of the Italian Senate.

Speakers at the event included Senator Francesco Silvestro, Marco Di Paola (FISE president), Francisco Lima (FEI director of Governance & Institutional Affairs), Paco D’Onofrio (sports law professor at the University of Bologna), and Claudio Coratella (Save a Horse Italia president), among other experts.

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The idea to publish the book in both Italian and English came from the University of Bologna and FISE, following a January 31, 2024 conference in Bologna that examined the evolving legal status of the horse in sports. (Certain requirements must be met in order for a horse to be defined as an ‘athlete’, including being registered in the equine directory of sport horses kept by the FISE.) A full chapter focuses on equestrian sports, the new role of horses, and their welfare. Experts praised Italy’s legal approach, suggesting it could serve as a model for other countries.

FISE president Marco Di Paola said, “We greatly desired the publication of this volume in order to leave legal academics, students, and experts in our world with an in-depth tool on a topic that in the third millennium has definitively changed the role of the horse in society. If in history it played a fundamental role in the evolution of humanity, influencing cultures and civilizations, today, the horse is finally recognized by the legislature … and the one who is employed in equestrian sports is finally an athlete.”

Simone Perillo, FISE secretary general and EEF board member, added, “For Italy this is an extraordinary result, but the goal is that ours can become a model of legislation to be replicated internationally. While legislative approaches within the European Union are multiple and still very differentiated, a turning point has been reached and the collective commitment, both at the European level, through the EEF, and at the international level, through the Fédération Équestre Internationale, is to continue the work of enhancing the figure of the horse athlete, as the core of all equestrian sports.”

~ with files from the Italian Equestrian Federation Press Office