Olympics: The Horses Are Not Having It

The "randomly assigned" bit is the flaw: let the athlete pick one out of a pool of say, 10 horses; "simulate" stealing one off a string. Give them say 2 minutes to speak to the horses and make their choice.

An escaping prisoner might well decide no horse is better than being on foot. is that a choice here? why not?

The whole enterprise is irretrievably silly; "Horse Dressage" is dancing, it turns out, and they never spend any effort on the horse's costumes.