Ashgabat 2017

Equestrian

Equestrianism means riding or driving horses. In sports there are various disciplines, Dressage, Racing, and Jumping.

These can be both individual and team events. Dressage is where the purpose is to develop the horse and rider, through standardized progressive course demonstrating the horses training.

At the peak of a dressage horse's gymnastic development, it can smoothly respond to a skilled rider's minimal aids by performing the requested movement while remaining relaxed and appearing effortless.

The performance is judged by a panel and given a mark out of ten. The horse and rider with the highest mark wins.

Horse racing is a sport which engages speed; the objective is for the jockey (the horse rider) to ride the as fast as possible around a course which may have obstacles.

The jockey and horse who crosses the finish line first is the winner. Horse Jumping or show jumping is Competitive riding of horses through an obstacle course.

Horses run the course one at a time, and the winner is judged according to jumping ability and speed. The horse is considered as much an athlete as the human rider.

Equestrian sport has been incorporated into the Asian Games since 1982.

List of disciplines

Jumping

Jumping (known as ‘Show Jumping’ in the United Kingdom) takes place in an arena, around a course of approximately 15 fences. Jumping courses are now highly technical, requiring boldness, scope, power, accuracy and control from both horse and rider.

The fences are designed so that if the horse hits them as they jump them, part or all of the fence will knock down and the rider will be penalised with ‘faults’.

Faults are also awarded if the rider does not complete the course within a set time. The winner is the rider with the fewest faults; if there is a tie, the result is decided by jumping a shortened course as fast as possible without knocking fences down (“against the clock”).

The Team medal is decided over three rounds by four riders and the Individual medals over five rounds.