Better Know An Olympic Sport : Eventing

Three Day Eventing is the most dangerous of the equestrian events, combining dressage, cross-country, and stadium jumping.  It is also what I competed in when I rode in high school, it’s a pretty big thing in the MD equestrian community.  In fact, this is someone I rode with at my barn, competing at the trials hosted by my Pony Club :

You may also remember eventing as the way Christopher Reeve broke himself.  Eventing is mainly dangerous because of the cross-country portion.  There are penalties for going too fast, mandated safety equipment, and people generally grease up their horses so they can slide over some of the jumps if they don’t quite make it, but shit like this still happens :

The other two phases are not particularly dangerous, and as such generally don’t get as much broadcast time during the Olympics.  In fact, the dressage phase is happening right now and no one is airing it.

Dressage

People like to make fun of dressage, but it’s actually the most difficult phase in eventing.  Eventing began as a sort of equestrian triathlon, testing all the aspects needed in an ideal military horse/rider combo.  Dressage means “training” and it is essentially the pursuit of perfection.  From the USEA :

The purpose of the dressage test is to demonstrate the level of communication between the horse and rider to and display the power and grace required to perform each movement with balance, rhythm, and suppleness. Due to the demands of the sport, the three-day event horse is extremely fit, and only strong and tactful riders possess the skills needed to harness and direct that energy into a both polished and powerful performance.

Ideally, it doesn’t look like the rider is doing anything and the horse is just performing all these intricate moves and patterns cause it feels like it.  In reality, there’s a HUGE amount going on, mainly with the rider’s seat, but also with legs and hands.  Even the position of the rider’s head will affect the balance between horse and rider and can be used as a cue.  This is a rider training the half-pass,

It doesn’t look like the rider is doing anything, right?  Well, this is how you ask a horse to do a half pass :

A rider uses an active outside leg slightly behind the neutral position to ask the horse to step forward and under. The outside rein maintains the correct bend and contains the energy of the horse, the inside leg keeps the horse moving forward, and the inside rein guides the forehand in the direction of movement. The rider also uses his or her inside seat bone to help maintain bend. If the rider is off-center or twisted, the horse will also be crooked or off-balance.

The rider is doing all of that, while also holding themselves steady and ensuring they aren’t accidentally doing anything else.  It’s like having good plank form while riding in the flatbed of a pickup on a bumpy road and trying to do a paint by number with your feet at the same time.

Dressage is scored by judges, so unless you know a fair amount about the sport it’s not easy to tell who is doing well and who is doing poorly.  If you know what’s going on, it’s fascinating, but if you don’t, it’s just a horse doing some stuff.  This makes it pretty boring for most people to watch, though I’ll happily talk anyone here through it if they want to attempt viewing!  Usually dressage is such that the highest score wins, but in eventing the score is converted so the lowest score is best.  This is to facilitate the scoring of the other portions, where penalties can be added on.

Cross-Country

I already talked a bit about this above.  Cross-country is pretty much the public face of eventing, since it’s the most dangerous and most spectacular part.  It’s pretty obvious why you would want your cavalry to be able to gallop around the countryside, jumping over or through anything that gets in their way.  There are judges at each fence to record the outcome of that fence for each competitor.  Competitors will receive penalties for refusals, and for completing the course too quickly or slowly.  Fall of horse or rider, as well as various errors like forgetting the course result in elimination.  It used to be that falls of the rider did not result in elimination, and on my worst cross-country run I fell off twice, because my horse was afraid of damn logs, but this was changed as part of an ongoing effort to improve safety.  Cross-country is dangerous enough that deaths occur, but it’s probably this phase that gets people into eventing in the first place.  It’s a hell of an adrenaline rush, and when done successfully, it’s totally badass.

Seriously fun stuff, and fun to watch even for people who have no idea how a horse works!

Show Jumping

Some may consider this to be cross-country’s lame little brother, but it’s still fun to watch.  Show jumping in eventing is a bit different than a normal show jumping competition, in the sense that the purpose of the event is to demonstrate that the horse and rider still have the energy and control to perform precise, controlled movements after the rigorous cross-country phase.  The event takes place in a ring, and while you still get some spectacular spills, the jumps are designed to fall apart on impact, so you don’t get the injuries that you get in cross-country, and the horse almost never falls, only the rider.

In order to complete a course, the rider has to control the stride length and approaches to each fence to give the horse the correct distance to take off.  Competitors are penalized for refusals, knocking down poles, and completing the course too slowly.  On a water jump, a foot in the water counts as a pole down.  What’s a water jump you ask?

Again, this stuff is fun to watch even if you have no idea what’s going on, though not quite as fun as watching cross-country.  One thing to notice, if you look at the riders in the cross-country photos and compare them to the riders in the show jumping photos, you’ll see that the riders keep their weight further back over the cross-country fences.  This is partially to control the greater speed used in cross-country, partially to maintain a more secure seat, and partially to prepare for landings you might not be able to see.  In show jumping, these factors don’t apply and the rider keeps a more forward seat, in keeping with the momentum of the horse over the fence.

After all three days, the penalties are totted up and added to the adjusted dressage score, and the horse/rider team with the lowest score wins!  And yes, the horse gets a medal too (actually a ribbon, but horses can’t really wear medals comfortably)