Campus
Disciplines
Your Role
About the FEI
The Olympic sport of Eventing is the most complete combined competition discipline recognised by the FEI. Sometimes described as an equestrian triathlon, Eventing demands considerable experience in all branches of equitation.
Eventing originated as a military competition which tested officers and horses in challenges that could occur on or off duty. It also provided a basis to compare training standards between the cavalries of different countries. The modern competition comprises dressage, cross-country and jumping on consecutive days. The competitor rides the same horse throughout the three phases.
Cross-country is the highlight, testing the speed, stamina and jumping ability of the horse, as well as the rider’s knowledge of pace and the use of his horse. The course will have between 25 and 45 specially constructed jumps over solid obstacles such as logs, woodpiles and stone walls, with water and ditches increasing the technical difficulty.
Eventing has a huge following with crowds of up to 250,000 recorded at the British spring feature at Badminton. In 1976 the Princess Royal was a member of the British Olympic team, and her daughter, Zara Phillips, is also an accomplished Event rider. Meanwhile New Zealand’s Mark Todd wrote a 112-page biography of his horse Charisma, with whom he twice won the Olympic Eventing title.
A demonstration of Olympic spirit and determination at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, where the first three Australians were well ahead of the field when one of their horses went lame, saw their fourth rider, 45-year-old Bill Roycroft, who had broken his collarbone in the cross-country, leave his hospital bed, to go clear in the Jumping and secure team gold for Australia.
Eventing demands of the competitor considerable experience in all branches of equitation and a precise knowledge of the horse’s ability and of the horse a degree of competence resulting from intelligent and rational training. It covers all round riding ability and horsemanship: the harmony between horse and rider that characterise Dressage; the contact with nature, precise knowledge of the horses ability and extensive experience essential for the Cross Country; the precision, agility and technique involved in Jumping.
Eventing is one of the three disciplines in competition at the Olympic Games, the other two being Jumping and Dressage.
Modern competitions consist of three distinct tests: Dressage, Cross-Country and Jumping. They take place on separate consecutive days during which a competitor rides the same horse throughout.
1. Dressage Test After an opening Horse Inspection, a Dressage test is performed, the object of which is the harmonious development of the physique and ability of the horse. The test consists of a series of compulsory movements at walk, trot and canter gaits, within a rectangular arena 60 m. long and 20 m. wide. To perform a good Dressage test, the horse needs to be flexible and fluid. To keep the strong Eventing horses under the firm control required by the exacting Dressage movements involves great knowledge and understanding. A good Dressage test lays the foundation for the rest of the competition and horses that are found wanting in this phase face an uphill struggle to get up amongst the prize-winners.
2. Cross-Country Test The focus of the entire event is on the Cross-Country test, the objective of which is to test the ability of athletes and horses to adpat to different and variable conditions (weather, terrain, obstacles, footing etc...) and jumping ability of the horse, while at the same time demonstrating the rider’s knowledge of pace and the use of his horse. Exceeding the time allowed and refusals result in penalties. All penalties are added together and recorded for inclusion in the final classification. Fall of a horse and/or of a rider entails immediate elimination.
3. Jumping Test The Jumping test takes place on the last day after a second Horse Inspection. Riders may voluntarily retire their horses if they seem unfit to continue. This test is run in reverse order of merit and its main objective is to prove that the horses have retained their suppleness, energy and obedience in order to jump a course of 11 to 15 obstacles.
The winning individual is the competitor with the lowest total of penalty points. The winning team is the one with the lowest total of penalty points, after adding together the final scores of the three highest placed competitors in the team.
The Premier Eventing Competitions are...
The new and updated Draft Schedules 2023, to be used for all international events taking place next year, are now available on inside.FEI.org.
Below you will find the direct links to the schedules for each discipline as well as the relevant contact email should you require further information and/or assistance:
Click here for Jumping // Person in charge : jenni.saynajarvi@fei.org and/or kevin.Guttmann@fei.org
Click here for Dressage // Person in charge: philippe.maynier@fei.org
Click here for Para Dressage // Person in charge: laetitia.gillieron@fei.org
Click here for Eventing // Contact email: eventingschedules@fei.org
Click here for Vaulting // Person in charge: laetitia.gillieron@fei.org
Click here for Driving // Contact email: driving@fei.org
Click here for Endurance // Contact email: endurance@fei.org
FEI Endurance World Championship 2022 – Re-opened Bid
See below a clarification to one of the bid criteria that was included in the FEI Update on 12 September 2022. Please kindly note that there was a typo in the original bid criteria where it was stated that the OC must have previously organised a CEI3* or a CEI2* 140. That criteria should have been written as follows:
NFs are kindly requested to inform their Endurance Organisers accordingly. As mentioned in the FEI Update of 12 September 2022, bids should be sent to bidding@fei.org no later than Monday, 10 October 2022.
FEI Series 2023-2024 bid process opens
The FEI is pleased to announce that the bid process for the 2023/2024 season of the FEI series listed below will open on Tuesday, 27 September 2022.
All interested organisers and/or National Federations (Applicants) are invited to submit their applications via the FEI Bidding Platform, using the application form available in the platform for that purpose, until Friday, 21 October 2022.
The FEI series opened for applications are the following:
Please find here below an overview of the relevant dates concerning the present bid process.
We kindly ask all National Federations to share this information with the organisers. Should you have any questions, please contact bidding@fei.org.
Further to the publication of the new FEI Eventing Education System last August, two free-access webinars on 12 October 2022 are organised to explain the new system, how it works during the transition phase, and clarify Officials' and Organisers' related queries.
The first webinar is at 08h30 and the second one at 14h00 CEST. Kindly register by October 6th to eventingofficials@fei.org – and provide your questions ahead, if any, so a Q&A can be prepared. Do not forget to specify at what time you want to join: 08h30 OR 14h00 CEST, so the correct link can be emailed to you.
In line with the FEI Officials’ Recommendations, please be informed that the FEI Eventing Education System has been fully revised by the FEI Eventing Department, the Eventing Officials Education Working Group, the FEI Education and Officials Department and the FEI Eventing Technical Committee, and will be implemented on 1 January 2023.
Alongside the FEI Eventing Education System, the related career pathways, job descriptions and transition document will also be published, with the latter describing the main changes in the new system and immediate consequences for existing Eventing Officials.
Finally, to provide support to, and answer questions from all Eventing stakeholders, two free-access webinars will be organised on 12 October 2022. The first one at 08h30 and the second one at 14h00 CEST. Practical details for these webinars will be communicated in due time.
Should you require any additional information, please do not hesitate to contact the FEI Eventing Department at eventingofficials@fei.org.
With the FEI Eventing and Driving World Championships 2022 ahead of us, we have recently published the FEI Doping & Medication Control Guide for the FEI World Championships 2022 to provide all concerned stakeholders with an overview of all the doping and medication control systems and processes in place for both Equine and Human Athletes.
To ensure we reach our target audience, we have sent targeted emailers to the Athletes on the Eventing Nominated Entries list for Pratoni del Vivaro 2022 (see attached emailer) and will replicate this when we have the Driving Nominated Entries for Pratoni del Vivaro.
As you can see in the attached, we have encouraged all nominated Athletes to familiarise themselves with the Guide and the Rules and Regulations in place, as well as ensuring their support personnel/teams are also fully up to date.
We also encourage all concerned National Federations to share this Guide with their teams attending/preparing for the World Championships such as Chefs d’équipe, Chefs de Mission, etc to ensure everyone has an accurate understanding of the Rules at play and avoid any anti-doping rule violations.
The Guide is available in 7 languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish) and we are available for any questions you may have.
The Eventing Forum and NSO Seminar will be organised from Friday 20 to Sunday 22 January 2023.
The location is to be confirmed as soon as possible. Please see the pre-notice invitation published on the following webpage.
The Eventing Categorisation of Athletes has been updated on 01 July 2022 and takes into account MERs obtained between 1 January 2014 and 30 June 2022.
The lists of categorised Athletes are available on the following webpage.
We hereby inform you that Mike Etherington-Smith has decided to step down as Course Designer Member of the RMSG. He has been replaced by Stuart Buntine.
The RMSG Terms of Reference and the list of Members can be viewed on the website under Eventing / Risk Management / RMSG
The following reports have been updated:
- Fence Description Form (and Instructions for filling in Fence Description Form):
An additional column “narrow fence (under 2 m between the flags)” has been added to improve the fence type data analysis
- Fall Report Form:
Several fields have been removed as these were hardly ever used for data analysis
- Fence Diagrams:
A clarification has been included regarding House type fences to be classified as “D3”
The updated forms can be found on the FEI website.
The following MIM instruction manuals have been updated on the FEI website:
In addition, the Frangible Device Chart providing specifications for each device has also been updated.
All information relating to Frangible Devices is available on the FEI website
We use cookies on this site to enhance your user experience.
By clicking any link on this page you are giving your consent for us to set cookies.