Humans likely mounted horses around 3500 BC
Equestrianism covers riding and driving horses for work, sport, and ceremony—from ranch sorting and police patrols to dressage and steeplechase. Best estimates place riding near 3500 BC. Thoroughbred flat racing dominates globally under bodies like Britain's Jockey Club.
The name comes from the Latin for horseman, and the field spans riding, driving and vaulting. Firm dates are disputed. A stallion buried near the Dnieper and Don rivers around 3000 BC shows tooth wear suggesting a bit, but the clearest early proof of working horses is chariot burials from about 2500 BC. Chariot warfare gave way to light and heavy cavalry. Horses vanished from North America at the end of the Ice Age until Europeans shipped them back.
Racing takes many shapes. Steeplechase adds jumps on the course, harness racing is dominated by the Standardbred pulling a sulky in trotting or pacing gaits, and endurance events run 80 to 161 kilometres over rough country with vet checks along the way; the winner is the first horse to finish and be passed fit. Equestrian events joined the modern Olympics in 1900, and by 1912 all three disciplines, dressage, show jumping and eventing, were in. Eventing has mostly dropped its old steeplechase phase to match the Olympic format.
Dressage, French for training, asks the horse to perform on cue the natural movements it makes running loose. Its most refined branch, the haute école, appears mainly in demonstrations by schools such as the Spanish Riding School in Vienna and the Royal Andalusian School in Jerez de la Frontera. The FEI also oversees combined driving, reining, vaulting and para-equestrian events, which group riders by functional ability.
Welfare studies are sobering. A British survey of horses whose owners reported no problems found about 73 percent showed some lameness and roughly half showed pain under saddle. School horses grimace more after one to two hours of work, and riders of every skill level miss pain signals and poorly fitting saddles.
Source: Equestrianism
