Equestrianism

Equestrianism

Equestrianism refers to the skill of riding or driving horses. This broad description includes both use of horses for practical, working purposes as well as recreational activities and competitive sports.

Overview of equestrian activities

Horses are trained and ridden for practical working purposes such as in police work or for controlling herd animals on a ranch. They are also used in competitive sports such as dressage, endurance racing, eventing, horseball, reining, show jumping, tent pegging, vaulting, polo, horse racing, puissance and rodeo. Other popular forms of competition are grouped together at horse shows, where horse perform in a wide variety of disciplines. Horses (and other equids such as mules and donkeys) are used for non-competitive recreational riding such as fox hunting, trail riding or hacking. There is public access to horse trails in almost every part of the world; many parks, ranches, and barns offer both guided and independent trail riding. Horses are also ridden for therapeutic purposes, both in specialized paraequestrian competition as well as non-competitive riding to improve human health and emotional development.
Horses are also driven in harness in racing, exhibition, and competitive show events. In some parts of the world, they are still used for practical purposes such as farming. For more information on the uses of horses in harness and driving, see harness racing and carriage driving.

History of equestrianism

Though there is controversy over the exact date horses were first ridden, the best estimate is that horses first carried riders approximately 5000 years ago. The earliest archaeological evidence of horses being ridden was in the military: chariot warfare in ancient times was followed by the use of war horses as light and heavy cavalry. However, horses were also ridden for everyday transport, and to carry messages in both war and peacetime. The horse and horseback riding played important roles throughout history and all over the world.
Olympic disciplines
The following forms of competition are recognized worldwide and are a part of the equestrian events at the Olympic Games:

Dressage ("training" in French) involves the progressive training of the horse to a high level of impulsion, collection, and obedience. Competitive dressage has the goal of showing the horse carrying out, on request, the natural movements that it performs without thinking while running loose. One dressage master has defined it as "returning the freedom of the horse while carrying the rider."

Show jumping comprises a timed event judged on the ability of the horse and rider to jump over a series of obstacles, in a given order and with the fewest refusals or knockdowns of portions of the obstacles.

Eventing, also called combined training, horse trials, the three-day event, the Military, or the complete test, puts together the obedience of dressage with the athletic ability of show jumping, the fitness demands the cross-country jumping phase. In the last-named, the horses jump over fixed obstacles, such as logs, stone walls, banks, ditches, and water, trying to finish the course under the "optimum time." There was also the 'Steeple Chase' Phase, which is now excluded from most major competitions to bring them in line with the Olympic standard.
New events added by the FEI as international disciplines in recent years include Combined driving, reining, equestrian vaulting, endurance riding and paralympic competition. While these events are recognized internationally and are all part of the World Equestrian Games, none are yet part of the Summer Olympics, though some, such as vaulting and reining, are potentially on track to be added.