Galloping To Greatness: Women’s Olympic Equestrian
Explore the elegance, control and connection required between a horse and a woman to succeed at the Olympics
Horseback riding has always been a sport and way of life for men, historically dating back to the 1300s in Europe. It was viewed as inappropriate for a woman to ride a horse to maintain a woman’s innocence. However, that didn’t stop women from being able to ride a horse. In the 1300s, women began riding in side-saddle to keep their legs together, maintaining their dignity and social status in old society views. Riding side-saddle also allowed women to wear their dress or skirt, which was the only acceptable fashion for women of class at the time. The further development of side-saddles in the 1800s allowed women more ability and security on the horse to show jump and gallop across the countryside. Women were able to jump up to 1.98 m in a side saddle in the early 1900s.
In the early twentieth century, split skirts and riding jodhpurs were designed to allow women to ride the horse in a regular saddle. By the 1930s, it became socially acceptable for women to ride astride.
Women first started competing in horse shows in the 1800s when the side-saddle was invented and modified to allow women to jump and gallop securely in the saddle. By the mid-1900s, women competed in all horse show events, riding astride a horse in a regular English saddle and normal riding pants.
At the second Olympics held in Paris in 1900, Equestrian events were first introduced to the Olympics. Equestrian became the only Olympic sport in which animals are involved. The first events included jumping, high jump, long jump, mail coach carriage driving, and hacks and hunter.
The first equestrians allowed to compete in the Olympics were traditional officers from the military. In 1912 at the Stockholm Games, dressage, eventing, and jumping became the stable events for the equestrian Olympics that we still see today as the three main popular events to watch.
The Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI) was started in 1921 to create regulations and programs for equestrian championships, continental and regional games, and the Olympics. Up until 1986, the FEI president was always a male. The first woman president of the FEI was not until 1986 when Anne, Princess Royal from the UK, held her position in the FEI for eight years.
Dressage is a form of horseback riding where the horse is finely trained to respond to cues by the rider performing various movements. The first recognized dressage riders date back to 400BC with classical Greek horsemanship. Dressage continued to develop throughout history through the military. The first dressage tests in the Olympics included various movements, five jumps up to 1.10 m, and a jump over a rolling painted cylinder. Today, dressage in the Olympics is split into individual and team events. The top eighteen individuals perform a freestyle dressage test to music, a fan favourite of equestrian events.
Eventing dates back to fox hunting in the nineteenth century, as riders would gallop their horses across the countryside, hunting down foxes with hounds. In the 1912 Olympics, the first eventing course had a 55km endurance race, a 5km cross-country course, a 3.5km steeplechase, a fifteen-jump jumping course, and a dressage test. Eventing was further developed for sport in the 1940s to be a four-phase event with vet examinations of the horse between phases and at the end of the event. Eventing has historically been viewed as too dangerous for women to compete in. Still, more and more women compete in eventing today, as some of the top eventing champions are women. Eventing today is a three-day event with three different rounds: dressage, show-jumping, and cross-country. Penalties are given at each round, and the lowest combined penalty score wins. A cross-country portion is a thrilling event for spectators as it is the most dangerous and demanding equestrian sport for horses and riders. There are forty jumps set out on a 6 km hilly course, including hedges and water jumps.
Jumping is a course of jumps that riders must navigate correctly, avoiding knocking any jumps over. There are usually thirteen or fourteen obstacles from 1.3 to 1.6 m in height and a water jump. The rider with the least number of faults from knocking over jumps and the fastest time wins. Jumping is another spectator favourite as horse and rider fly over twelve to fifteen jumps in a stadium arena. The jumps are 1.40 to 1.65 m high and up to 2.2 m wide and include a water jump.
Today, there are eight equestrian events at the Olympics: jumping, dressage, eventing, para-dressage, reining, vaulting, endurance, and combined driving. However, the most popular and highlighted equestrian events remain to be dressage, jumping, and eventing.
Women and men compete against each other equally in all equestrian events in the Olympics. There are only a few other Olympic sports where men and women can compete equally against each other, including long-distance swimming and sailing.
Elvira Guerra, representing Italy, became the first woman to compete on horseback at the 1900 Paris Olympics and the first woman to represent Italy. She competed in hacks and hunter combined in which riders would ride their horse at a walk, trot, and canter and jump obstacles. Elvira placed ninth out of fifty-one competitors while riding a side-saddle. One other woman was competing whose name has been lost in history, while all the other competitors were men from the cavalry.
The hacks and hunter combined event was removed from the Olympics after the 1900 Paris Olympics. A new restriction was brought to the Olympics that only allowed male officers to compete in the equestrian events.
In 1951, restrictions were lifted, allowing women to compete in Olympic dressage alongside men. At the 1952 Helsinki Olympic Games, four women made history the first to compete in Equestrian sport at the Olympics: Lis Hartel, representing Denmark; Ida von Nagel, representing Germany; Elsa Christophersen, from Norway; and Marjorie Haines, from USA.
Lis Hartel was paralyzed from the waist down due to polio. She won a silver medal at the Helsinki Olympic Games. At the Stockholm Olympic Games four years later, she won another silver medal.
In 1956, women would be allowed to compete in Olympic jumping, and by 1956, women could compete in eventing.
Women have paved their way throughout history, proving themselves to be just as athletic and able to compete in equestrian events as men. It has been noted throughout the twentieth century that only high-class and wealthy people would have the means to ride horses at an Olympic level.
Most female competitors in the Olympics were in dressage, as jumping and eventing were thought to be too dangerous for women. Germany, UK, Sweden, and the USA have been the dominant countries of women competing in equestrian events, even today. There has been an increase in women competing from the Middle East, however, as it is becoming more socially acceptable in those countries.
Here is a list of women who have made their name popular by setting the bar high for both men and women competing in equestrian events:
Kathy Kusner (1961, USA) is an Olympic Equestrian and the first licensed female jockey. She set the women’s horse-jumping record at age eighteen at 2.2 m high.
Lana du Pont Wright (1964, USA) is credited with being one of the first women competitors in eventing in the Olympics. She helped lead the US Eventing Equestrian Team to a silver medal at the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games.
Liselott Linsenhoff (1972, Germany), born in Germany, was the first woman to win an individual gold medal in the Olympics in dressage in 1972 at the Munich Olympics.
Lorna Johnstone (1972, UK) is the oldest woman to compete in the Olympics riding dressage at age seventy in the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Isabell Werth (1992, Germany) is a dressage rider who has won the most medals in dressage with over ten medals in five Olympic Games. She is considered one of the most successful dressage riders today.
Ingrid Klimke (2000, Germany) is a leading woman in Olympic eventing. She has competed in every Olympics since 2000 and has also won seven gold medals in the European Championships, World Equestrian Games, and the Olympics.
Mandy McCutcheon (2015, USA) is a competitive champion at the reining event in the Olympics. She was the first woman and non-pro to compete in a Reining World Championship. She is the only pro-female to surpass $2 million in earnings in the National Reining Horse Association competition.
Beezie Madden (2016, USA) has medalled in individual and team jumping at four different Olympics. She is the first woman to earn over $1 million in show-jumping earnings.
Charlotte Dujardin (2016, UK), a three-time gold medallist in dressage, set the bar high for the Olympic sport of dressage. Charlotte holds three world record dressage scores, with the latest from the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. She is world-famous for her incredible dressage performances with her horse Valegro.
Simone Blum (2018, Germany) became the first woman to win an individual jumping gold medal at the World Equestrian Games in 2018, setting the bar high for the Olympics. She represents the German showjumping team.
The 2020 Tokyo Olympics will have many women competing in all of the equestrian events. There will be three main equestrian events: dressage, jumping, and eventing, all individual and team competitions. Here are some of the top women to watch:
Dressage: Isabell Werth and Charlotte Dujardin will compete in individual dressage as reigning individual gold medallists.
Jumping: Beezie Madden, the most decorated US female equestrian, will also be competing for the USA’s team.
Eventing: Rosalind Canter secured a gold medal for Great Britain’s team at the 2018 World Equestrian Games and is one to watch in eventing this summer.
Women continue to pave the way competing head-to-head with men in the equestrian Olympic sport. The horse, in general, symbolizes freedom, intuition, endurance, nobleness, and confidence. No wonder women are drawn to uniting with horses. The very symbolic nature of the beautiful animal goes naturally hand in hand with a woman. The future for women in equestrian at the Olympics continues to look promising as more opportunities for women worldwide to ride grows.
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