Jim B. was joking with me the other day that I could post whatever I wanted to about the Olympics, but to lay off the pictures of British equestrians. Well, I never!
Realizing that I knew squat about the equestrian competition, I took a poke around some websites and found out that, as I expected, this is not a sport for the working class. It's damn expensive to care for multiple horses, house them, get them to competitions and so forth. More than that, though, I found out that at Olympic level, there's three competitions involving humans and horses:
Jim B. was joking with me the other day that I could post whatever I wanted to about the Olympics, but to lay off the pictures of British equestrians. Well, I never!
Realizing that I knew squat about the equestrian competition, I took a poke around some websites and found out that, as I expected, this is not a sport for the working class. It's damn expensive to care for multiple horses, house them, get them to competitions and so forth. More than that, though, I found out that at Olympic level, there's three competitions involving humans and horses:
The Dressage is very formal and precise; it’s the equestrian equivalent of the events in figure skating where the participants have to do a prescribed series of moves that are judged for technical skill.
Eventing is considered to be like a triathlon, with dressage, jumping and a race the components, taking place over three days. Apparently, it's a bit of a death sport too: about a dozen riders have been killed in the last few years and horses at about the same number. Fans of NASCAR, you have your sport then.
Last is the jumping, which is usually the portion that is televised. It cracks me up to see this very difficult task undertaken by people in a top hat and tails. Ah, the aristocratic roots of the sport!
One of the things I really love about watching the Olympics is seeing sports that are only on the general sports fan's radar every four years (see: bobsledding). The equestrian events begin August 9th, I'm sure one of the numerous NBC-related channels will be carrying it.
