In the picture, a female jockey jumping on her horse.
SPORTS

Equestrian Jumping

Equestrian The Jumping discipline in Equestrian sports is a synchronization based on the horse's and rider's skills to jump over a series of obstacles. It is a combination of courage, control and technical skill. The discipline tests speed, power and control, while the horses and riders try to run a course with approximately 15 jumps without knocking any or commiting penalties

The winner is the pair that makes less penalties, in the least possible time. Jumping is one of the most popular equestrian disciplines around the world and in #Santiago 2023, it will offer a quota place for the next Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

In the picture, a female jockey riding her horse after jumping.

History of this sport

Equestrian sports made their debut at the first Pan American Games in 1951 in Buenos Aires. The equestrian sport has three disciplines, where men and women compete directly against each other. In addition, this is the only Olympic and Pan American sport where humans and animals compete together. Its beginnings date back more than two thousand years, when the Greeks started to train their horses for war.

Equestrian show jumping is the youngest discipline in the art of riding. In the 18th century, the British Parliament passed the "enclosure laws", which meant that private land was enclosed and riders had to jump over fences to reach their destinations.

In 1900, as part of the Universal Exposition in Paris, the first international equestrian show jumping competition was included during the Olympic Games with three individual events for riders: show jumping, mixed high jumping and mixed long jumping.

For the next few decades, the jumping event was dominated by the military, but with the mechanization of the military, civilians became more prominent. Women made their first Olympic appearance at the 1956 Stockholm Games.

In the picture, a female jockey riding her horse after jumping.

How do you compete?

In this discipline, the horse and rider must cross a course of 15 obstacles in the shortest time possible. For this competition there are four judges who qualify the speed with which the horses finish the course, in addition to penalizing faults: jumping or knocking down an obstacle, the horse refusing to jump, among others.

The courses include water jumps, double bars, triple bars and simulated stone walls, which can be 1.40 to 1.65 m high.

In the end, the rider who has had the fewest penalties during the course, completes the course in the shortest time or scores the most points wins. This will depend on the type of competition being held.

As this sport is a very specialized discipline, it requires a capable horse and a rider with a thorough equestrian training. Although jumping is the basis, it is not the only goal: jumping precision and speed of execution are also aspects that the pair must overcome. If we add to this the difficulty of the layout of the obstacles in the arena and the acrobatic riding of the specialty, the popularity that equestrian show jumping has gained is quite understandable.

Quiz

What is a penalty in equestrian jumping?

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Information for the community

The Riding School of the University of Chile is located at the Faculty of Veterinary Sciences of the University of Chile, in La Pintana. The sports area, where you can learn and practice horseback riding, also functions as an equestrian clinic. There they take care of the care and maintenance of the horses. This school seeks to provide its students and the community with knowledge, skills and attitudes suitable for the practice of horsemanship. Here you can learn about horse care and handling, natural taming and different equestrian disciplines such as dressage, jumping, polo or reining.

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