Many nations on 6 continents participate in international equestrian competitions. The Federation Equestre Internationale (FEI) founded in 1921 is the governing body that oversees these competitions including the World Equestrian Games. FEI disciplines include: Jumping, Dressage and Para Dressage, Eventing, Driving and Para Driving, Endurance, Vaulting and Reining.
The goal of the FEI is to maintain competitions that uphold the FEI standards of Equality, Fair Play, Complicity with the Animal, Respect for the Environment and Respect for the Horse. Regulations and the approval process for competitions are determined by 7 stakeholder groups that include the FEI President (HRH Princess Haya) and National Federations (there are 132). Many National Federation have additional equestrian sports that are not recognized internationally. For example, the United States Equestrian Federation gives out annual awards for events that include Saddleseat Equitation and Western Pleasure. It's the responsibility of these national federations to choose teams to represent their nation for the World Equestrian Games, Olympics and other international competitions.
The French national equestrian federation, called Federation Francaise d'Equitation, governs many competitions not recognized by the FEI. Two that I find really interesting are a sport called TREC and Skijoring with horses.
TREC competitions involve four separate components. The TREC acronym stands for 'Techniques de Randonnee Equestre de Competition', which roughly translates to Techniques Hiking Equestrian Competition. The first test is where a rider must plan a course along a marked route using a topographic map of a course between 12-50km. Twenty minutes before the competition starts, management reviews the planned course and during the riding of the course, there are unknown checkpoints. Efficiency in route planning and long distance ride management is tested here. The second part of the competition involves obstacles that may be encountered on a trail. They can include anything from fording a creek, stairs, a series of rapid jumps, opening a gate and obstacles where the rider must dismount from their horse and complete the obstacle themselves. During the third phase, riders meet with the officials and describe what tack they're using. They take off their saddle bags and discuss any first aid supplies they carry and why they use the equipment that they do. Lastly, a dressage test completes the competition. The dressage test focuses on the ability of the rider to control their mount. As someone who enjoys hiking, this seems like quite the fun competition!
Having lived in Alaska for a little bit, I usually think of skijoring as a sport where a dog pulls a skier along behind him. Skijoring with horses is very similar except the four legged mammal doing the pulling weighs 1000 pounds more! Races can be held on snow, grass or sand and are held on a circular race track. Below is a video that explains a little bit about this sport. Most of the time the horses are riderless but I did see a few videos where there were riders. If you're an adrenaline junkie, this may be the sport for you!
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There are a lot more very neat competitions in the 132 national federations recognized by the FEI. We'll definitely take a look at some more in future posts!
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