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Riding Disciplines
From cave paintings drawn nearly 25,000 years ago, to modern competitions, the horse has evolved through human influence both in spirit and physical appearance. Horses have been a part of the human lifestyle forever, being used for work in agriculture, power generation, war, communication, police and peacekeeping forces, and transportation.
Although many of these uses have now come to pass and horses have been replaced with mechanized equipment, they have long but been forgotten. We’ve invented new ways to keep them a part of our daily lives, mostly in the form of pleasurable hobbies and free time activities. These activities, otherwise known as disciplines, have gained such incredible popularity that many of them are Olympic Sports. Training in these three Olympic Disciplines: Dressage, Stadium Jumping and Three Day Eventing, are the Academy’s specialty.
DRESSAGE
The first of the three is Dressage, or classical equitation, and has its beginnings in the Baroque Riding Halls of Europe during the Renaissance. The word Dressage comes from the French verb dresser, which means to “dress”. In the horse sense, this translates to “dressing the movement of the horse”.
The war horses of medieval times were highly trained in the art of the “airs”, or “schools above ground” which have come to mean the rears, leaps, and kicks that are still practiced at such prestigious institutions as the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, Austria. These movements were initially employed as useful war tactics to keep approaching soldiers traveling on foot at bay. Today’s modern movements are much more refined versions of the airs performed by medieval war-horses thousands of years ago.
As the discipline evolved, so did a means of measurement of perfection according to those principles considered ideal. And thus, the first dressage tests developed. The pre-cursers of the modern Dressage test were the tests conducted to determine the best-trained military chargers during the nineteenth century. These individual tests were first included in the Olympic Games in 1912, and a team test was introduced at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam. When Dressage made its introduction at the 1912 Olympics, it was for military riders exclusively and remained so for another 40 years. Eventually, the competition was opened to, and is now dominated by, civilian riders. Dressage tests are actually divided into two categories: levels 1-4, and the FEI (International) competitions: Prix St. Georges, Intermediare I, Intermediare II, and Grand Prix. A freestyle, or kur as it is sometimes called, is ridden to music and allows the rider to design his/her own test choreographed to this music. Freestyles are typically ridden at the higher levels, from fourth level on upwards, and always contain a set of mandatory movements that must be incorporated into the test, although the order of which is not predetermined. Each movement corresponds to letters assigned in fixed areas, spaced equally around the ring. The execution of these movements are marked (or graded) individually, from a scale of 0-10, as follows:
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10
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Exceptional (extremely difficult and very rarely attained) |
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9
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Excellent |
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8
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Very Good |
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7
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Good |
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6
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Satisfactory |
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5
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Sufficient |
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4
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Unsatisfactory |
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3
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Bad |
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2
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Very Bad |
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1
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Basically not performed (typically just given for effort) |
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0
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Not Performed
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STADIUM JUMPING
Show Jumping is the second of the Olympic disciplines. Jumping started to make its appearance in the horse world in the early 19th century, and evolved from cross-country and hunting events.
Show jumping is easy to understand. The challenge is simple: to clear 15-20 obstacles without faults. “Faults”, or penalty points, are assessed should a horse fall, refuse, or knock down any part of the fence or course. Rider and horse must negotiate the course at the correct angle, height and speed and also be mindful of completing the course within the time limit specified. The rider who races too fast may grow careless and knock down a fence; an overly cautious rider may incur time faults. The starting order, or line-up, is determined in a drawing before the class so that each rider has an equal chance of attaining a favorable position.
Differently from Dressage where higher scores are desirable, the goal in Jumping is to accumulate as few faults as possible. In an un-timed event, it’s simple: the horse and rider with the fewest faults in the fastest time wins. If it is a timed event, two rounds are ridden. In the first round, the rider must come in under the maximum time allowed to be eligible for participation in the second. If not, they are given a time fault (1/4 fault point per second). Those who clear the first round without faults (both time and otherwise) are the only ones who go on to the second round. During the second round, the goal is both to clear the round without faults and to have the fastest time. The horse and rider with the fastest time and no faults win. In a Grand Prix jumping course, the second round is called the jump-off, and no two courses are designed the same. The designer's goal is to set up a challenging course that only a handful can complete with no faults.
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EVENTING
The third and final Olympic equestrian sport is called three-day eventing, or simply eventing. Eventing is also otherwise known as combined training or cross-country, and the modern version of the discipline encompasses a dressage test, a cross-country course, and a stadium-jumping course. While the Dressage portion tests the balance and rhythm of the duo, the stadium jumping section tests agility. The cross country section tests the speed and endurance of both horse and rider, and is further divided into four parts: two sessions of Roads & Tracks, a Steeplechase, and an eventing test consisting of as many as 30 obstacles set in varied terrain. There are four levels of competition in Three-Day Eventing, designated by stars (one-star through four-star, with four-star having the highest degree of difficulty). A horse and rider team must earn the right to compete at each of the levels, which get successively harder.
Each event is ridden on one day, hence the name “three-day eventing”. In smaller and less demanding competitions (i.e. lower levels), these events are often done in one or two days instead of three. All events are preceded by a vet check for all horses competing in the competition, and each section is judged separately. The scores are added together, and the horse and rider team with the most points, wins.
The first organized competition in this discipline was held in 1902 in Paris, and was comprised of a dressage test, steeplechase, 30-mile cross-country race, and jumping test. Like so many other disciplines, modern eventing was born of the military’s practice of testing a rider’s ability, and a horse’s endurance and speed, by means of arduous competition. Military riders were the only ones permitted to ride in this event at the Olympics until after WWII, at which point civilians were welcomed and who now, similar to Dressage, dominate the discipline.
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