The most mass and popular type of equestrian sport is show jumping (overcoming obstacles). In this sport, the rider with a horse must pass the route, overcoming obstacles set on it, consisting of individual wooden parts. If the obstacles are hit, they are easily destroyed, thereby preventing participants from injuries and falls. Obstacles in show jumping are quite diverse: steep poles fences (chukhons), parallel bars (oxers), streamlined tees, stone walls, bridges and other structures made of wood, ditches with water – open and with poles obstacles set above them as well as their different combinations. The height of obstacles depending on the competition class is from 100 to 180 cm. On the route, according to the class of difficulty, 8 to 16 obstacles are set. Two or three of them are a system of several barriers located at a distance of 7-12 m.
By their nature, competitions overcoming obstacles rather diverse. They may take a predetermined route with a specific sequence of jumps, and sometimes the rider may choose the route himself. There are competitions in which only part of the obstacles are overcame according to the choice of the rider, relay races with two athletes, and a variety of other types of competitions. Judging of these competitions is also different. In competitions on a predetermined route the cleanliness and speed of passage is evaluated. For breaking an obstacle or part of it a rider suffers 4 penalty points, for mucking (the horse refusing to jump) also 4 penalty points, the second mucking entails disqualification of the rider from the competition. The rider is also disqualified for falling off or with the horse and for the animal leaving the competition ground. For overdue time, the rider receives 1 penalty point for each extra second. In the case of equality of the best results for the participants assigned jumping over a shortened route with an increase in obstacles by 10 cm, the result is determined in this case, taking into account the time spent.
Competitions in show jumping are especially spectacular. The course is decorated with greenery and flowers, around the obstacles the decorative slopes in the form of various architectural or ethnographic attributes are installed, the riders perform in bright redingotes. All this creates a festive atmosphere.
Competitive riders of our country have repeatedly demonstrated high results, speaking at the European, world and Olympic championships, although we have not had many gold medalists in this sport. In recent years, unfortunately, our athletes are significantly behind the best riders in the world. Desirable measurements for dressage horses are: height at withers: 167-169-cm, body length 164-166cm, chest circumference 193-195cm and girth of the metacarpal about 22cm. Trakehner, Budenow, Hanoverian and Thoroughbred horses are especially successful in show jumping.
Overcoming obstacles on horseback, show jumping has a special place in the program of equestrian competitions and in the ritual of modern Olympic Games. On the final day, before the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games, there is a two-race show jumping with the “Grand Olympic Obstacle Prize” as an individual competition.
Show jumping is the youngest type of equestrian sport, it is barely a hundred years old, but despite its “young” age it has won wide popularity among equestrians and spectators from the first days of its creation and become the most popular and memorable sight.
For Europe, XVIII-XIX centuries were characterized by passion for equestrian hunting and the development of thoroughbred horse breeding. Equestrian sports developed along with horse breeding, where barrier races and steeplechases occupied a large place along with smooth races. These trials greatly contributed to the emergence of new types of equestrian sport, in which jumping competitions rapidly developed and the technique of training the hunter’s jumping horse was mastered. In the process of such training and emerged as a new type of equestrian sport, competitions overcoming obstacles.
The homeland of show jumping is considered to be France. In the fifties of the last century at a Paris horse show for the first time were held competitions in jumping over various obstacles, which were called “show jumping”. Active organizers and participants of the first show jumping were cadets of the Samur cavalry school and officers of other countries who were trained there.
The Italian cavalry school in Pinerodo made a great contribution to the formation of this equestrian sport, especially in 1890″ 1907, when one of its instructors was a young Italian cavalry captain Federico Caprilli – founder of the “natural school of riding”. Caprilli put a lot of creative energy into finding a rational method of jumping a horse and training a rider – a competitor.
As time passed, the scale of show jumping expanded, jumping technique and tactics of show jumping improved. The popularity of the sport grew and, as a result, jumping competitions were included in the program of the II Olympic Games in Paris for the first time. Hence, the youngest equestrian sport, jumping, was the first to gain Olympic recognition, while dressage and jumping were introduced only at the second Olympics in Stockholm in 1912 and the equestrian triathlon. At that memorable Olympiad, where dressage, show-jumping and equestrian triathlon were presented simultaneously, the search for Olympic equestrian sports ended in principle.