A guide to equestrianism: The rules, the riders and the $2.35m bonus prize

Illustration: Kelsea Petersen / The Athletic; picture alliance / Getty, David Davies / Getty, Archives Cnosf / Getty Share articleEquestrianism is the ultimate team sport, built on a unique partnership between horse and human. Throughout the year, riders compete for millions of dollars in prize money in iconic venues around the world, from the vast outdoor arena in Aachen, Germany, to the famous Villa Borghese gardens in Rome, Italy, offering spectators the very best in elite horsemanship. The sport began in earnest around the turn of the 20th century and featured in the 1900 Paris Olympics. The three main events — dressage, eventing, and show jumping — have been a mainstay of the Olympics since 1912. As part of The Athletic’s ever-expanding global sports coverage, we will bring you in-depth reporting on this year’s major competitions. To get us started, this is everything you need to know about equestrianism. The five disciplines are dressage, eventing, show jumping, driving, and vaulting (more on each later), which require different skills from both horse and rider. Reaching the highest level doesn’t come cheaply, with many of the top riders receiving financial backing from national federations, sponsors and owners. But it is the only sport at the Olympic Games where men and women compete with and against each other, across all disciplines, although it wasn’t always so egalitarian. When equestrianism was first included in the Olympics, in 1900, only commissioned military personnel (all men) could compete. That changed at the 1952 Games in Helsinki when dressage opened to civilians and women for the first time. Women were allowed to compete in Olympic show jumping four years later, followed by eventing at the 1964 Summer Games. Often described as “horse dancing” or “ballet on horseback,” dressage is mostly based on natural horse movements. A passage, which is a slow-motion trot where a horse lifts its diagonal pairs of legs high off the ground, mirrors an animal prancing or shifting weight when playing, fighting or mating. Dressage horses must trot, canter and walk in a set of different ways, such as extension (lengthening the stride), collection (carrying more weight on hindquarters) or changing speed. Judges award points for completing the tasks well, while a horse’s attitude and style are also important. A tetchy horse will score less than a calm one. And in freestyle dressage, a crowd favorite at large events, including the Olympics, the horse and rider perform to music. A post shared by Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour (@cathrinedufour) Eventing is the triathlon of equestrian sports. It is generally regarded as the most physically demanding and most dangerous of all five disciplines. Riders and horses start off with a dressage test, followed by cross country the next day over courses that are typically 3- to 3.5-miles long. Horses and riders go round the course in a canter or gallop, jumping over solid fences, massive logs, deep ditches and steep drops. Event organizers will set an optimum time for riders and horses to finish, with equine vets checking the horses’ welfare when they finish. The final day of eventing consists of a show jumping competition. In show jumping, riders and horses must complete a set course, consisting of 10-15 obstacles of varying heights, dimensions and difficulty, and jumps over water, within a set time. The first aim is to complete a clear round, which means finishing the course without knocking down any part of any obstacle, or refusing to jump any of them. The rules are set by the Federation Equestre Internationale (FEI), the sport’s global governing body: Knocking down a pole or foot in water = 4 faults Refusing to jump an obstacle = 4 faults Second refusal = elimination (though local event rules may differ) Fall of horse or rider  = elimination Exceeding time limit = 1 fault per second over the time allowed If more than one rider jumps clear, a special jump-off is held. The winner is the rider who completes it with the fewest faults, in the fastest time. Driving is thought to be the oldest of the disciplines, with four-horse chariot racing (think Ben-Hur) first held at the Ancient Olympics in Greece in 680 BC. Nowadays, a driver (or drivers) steers a carriage pulled by one, two or four horses, in three main disciplines: dressage driving, cross-country driving and obstacle driving. Vaulting is basically gymnastics on horseback, with competitors performing a set of exercises, sometimes to music and sometimes in pairs, or even in a squad of six, with three on a horse at any one time. In some countries, such as the Netherlands, children often start with vaulting to get used to horses and their movement before moving on to riding. Chicago’s Kent Farrington topped the jumping world rankings at the end of April, knocking Britain’s Scott Brash — an Olympic team gold medallist at the Paris Olympics — off the top spot. Another American, 60-year-old Laura Kraut, is 11th. It is not unusual for riders to compete into their 60s. This spring, 64-year-old Briton Mary King, a six-time Olympian, retired after an astonishing 46 seasons. Germany’s ‘Queen of Dressage’ Isabell Werth is the most decorated Olympic horserider of all time, with a total of 14 Olympic medals, including eight gold, from seven appearances. In recent years, Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour has been in the ascendancy, with the Danish rider now topping the dressage world rankings. Another German, eventer Michael Jung, has won three of the past four Olympic individual events. In 2012, he became the first rider to hold Olympic, world and European titles at the same time. There’s no getting away from the fact that having a horse, which needs to be fed, stabled and trained, is expensive. In recent years, royalty and notable names have competed in elite competition. Notable examples include Jessica Springsteen, daughter of musicians Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa, winning show jumping team silver for the United States at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and Zara Tindall, Queen Elizabeth II’s granddaughter, taking silver in team eventing in London in 2012. Tindall’s mother is Princess Anne, who competed in eventing at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. Still, some of the world’s top riders, including Brash and Australia’s Edwina Tops-Alexander don’t come from wealthy backgrounds. They were able to make it in large part due to their extraordinary horsemanship, tenacity and talent. While horseriding can be expensive, equestrian sport is hugely popular in countries such as the Netherlands and Germany, which boast hundreds of riding schools offering affordable lessons to the next generation. The most gifted rider won’t have much of a chance without a good horse. And horses make riders famous. Some notable examples include Milton, a big, beautiful grey who won numerous big jumping titles with Britain’s John Whitaker in the 1980s and 1990s. And then there is Jappeloup de Luze, a small French-bred horse, who became one of the greatest show jumpers of all time with rider Pierre Durand during the 1980s. Totilas, a Dutch Warmblood stallion, was a dressage superstar from 2008 to 2011 and, with Dutchman Edward Gal, won titles all over the world, setting record scores. Lastly, Jung’s La Biosthetique Sam won back-to-back Olympic golds in 2012 and 2016 in eventing and was the first horse to hold Olympic, World and European titles simultaneously. Tracking the equestrian season is almost as tricky as trying to negotiate some of the sharp turns and steep fences the horses come across in show jumping. Every four years, there is a World Championships, featuring show jumping, dressage, eventing, driving, vaulting and para dressage. The 2026 edition will be held in Aachen in August, a venue widely considered to be the Wimbledon of the equestrian world. There are several other big events, including Badminton, Burghley and Windsor, in the U.K., and the Nations Cup team competition, but the ultimate aim for all riders is success at the Olympics. While show jumping used to be split into an indoor winter season and an outdoor summer season, the sport now travels the globe year-round. The season starts with the Wellington Equestrian Festival in Florida, which runs from January to March. Various other competitions and tours continue all the way through to December. There’s also the Rolex Series, which consists of seven standalone shows held in the United States, Italy, France, Sweden, Ireland and Belgium. In March, Farrington and his horse Greya won the first of this year’s series, triumphing at the $1 million Equestrian Open Grand Prix in Wellington, Fl. The Rolex Grand Slam of Show Jumping brings together the four show jumping “majors” in Aachen, Geneva, Spruce Meadows in Canada and ‘s-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands and offers a €1 million ($1.17m) bonus to anyone who completes the “Grand Slam” by winning three of the four events consecutively. Brash, in 2015, is the only rider to achieve it so far. If anyone wins four, the bonus doubles to €2 million ($2.35m). Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms