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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 Eventing categorisation of Athletes has been updated on 1 July 2018 and takes into account MERs obtained between 1 July 2010 and 30 June 2018.
The lists of categorised Athletes are available on the following webpage.
As you may know, this is an election year for the FEI Athlete Representatives in all the FEI disciplines. We have recently reached out to all the eligible athletes and we would like to enlist the community to help us encourage and motivate eligible athletes to come forward and nominate themselves.
The FEI Athlete representative carries a four year term (non-renewable) and is a member of the FEI Discipline Committee and also member of the FEI Athletes Committee with all the other athlete representatives. This position is a really important and vital role providing a voice to your community within the global decision making process.
We have a dedicated page on InsideFEI with all the relevant information around elections.
Timeline & Deadlines
1 May, 23:59 CEST Deadline to submit Application
8 May Names and supporting documents of Candidates for the Athlete Representative positions will be published
29 July Online voting process opens on inside.fei.org (see eligibility criteria above)
23 September Online voting process closes
Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Julie.schlaefli@fei.org
The report and annexes of the 2018 Eventing Risk Management Seminar have been published under Eventing / Risk Management
The Eventing Statistics Report 2006 – 2017 has been finalized.
It is published on the FEI website under Eventing / Risk Management
The following video instructions for the MIM devices have been published under http://inside.fei.org/fei/disc/eventing/risk-management/devices
- Introduction on MIM system
- Oxer and Post & Rail
- Gate & Wall
- Table
The instructions for Corner fences will be available at a later stage.
Eventing’s “quiet” season has been anything but quiet this year, and the past few weeks have seen a series of key meetings focusing on important aspects of the sport.
- Warendorf (GER) hosted a four-day workshop in mid-January at which 40 senior experienced Eventing judges focused on Eventing Dressage. The objective was to reach consensus on Dressage judging parameters for the discipline (...)
- This was followed by the Eventing Risk Management seminar, which was held in the Olympic Museum in Lausanne (SUI) on 27 and 28 January. National Safety Officers and National Federation representatives from 23 countries attended (...)
- The Risk Management Steering Group met immediately afterwards to review the recommendations made at the NSO seminar and formulate proposals that will go forward to the Eventing Committee (...)
- The series of meetings concluded with a two-day seminar on Conformity in Eventing (2 and 3 February), designed to streamline themes and discussions that course directors will implement in order to have consistency of information on all FEI Eventing courses
Full text is available here:
Final FEI World Eventing Athlete Rankings 2017 - Final Rankings
The Eventing Zone Rankings have been updated and are available on the following webpage, click here.
Eventing Risk Management
Following discussions on Eventing Risk Management at last month’s FEI General Assembly in Montevideo (URU), we have produced a Question & Answer document specifically on this topic which you can read here
Further to the Eventing Committee meeting and the Eventing Risk Management Steering Group, we would like to share with you the very strong recommendations to be implemented by your NFs for Eventing in regard to Risk management:
FRANGIBLE DEVICES: The use of FEI certified frangible devices releasing from horizontal force on all open rails, gates, oxers and oxer corners is strongly recommended for all national and international events. The list of approved devices can be found on the FEI website under Eventing / Risk Management. In addition, the development of new frangible technologies is encouraged at national level.
CROSS COUNTRY COURSE DESIGN GUIDELINES: As per the FEI Update sent 4 May 2017, this document has been updated and can be found on the website under Eventing / Rules. It is also available on the FEI RuleApp (available on Smartphones), regular updates will be made to the document.
VIDEO RECORDING ON CROSS COUNTRY: NFs are strongly encouraged to use video recording on XC and share video footage of all horse falls and near misses with the FEI. The collection and review of footage of horse falls will improve the understanding of the fall mechanism and help on the specific questions i.e. identifying equipment used by riders, learning from connection of falls with certain fences to be addressed as a priority.
MEDICAL MEASURES: It is strongly encouraged that medical suspension and return to play plan be implemented by NFs to allow a better follow-up of athletes having sustained a concussion or a serious injury. Concussion information for health care professionals can be found on our website under here .
In addition, officiating FEI Eventing Technical Delegates are reminded that they need to report back to the FEI on the Monday following the competition, all serious injuries and concussions to allow the FEI to notify the athlete’s and/or horse’s NFs and enable follow-up.
Therefore, the following sections of the TD report should be sent on Monday to allow an optimum follow up:
- Medical section E- Falls/Injuries – List of Athletes (including possible concussion)
- Veterinary section F - Falls/Injuries – List of Horses
- Disciplinary section D-Sanctions, Warnings, Yellow Cards, Penalties and Fines.
FALLS REPORTS: Three additional fields have been added to the fall report in order to collect information on the use of lever bits, martingales and back (thigh) blocks in relation with falls. The updated fall report is published under Officials/Eventing/Forms and Downloads
Finally, please note that the implementation of the modified fence description form to include measurements for the leading edge is not yet available and will be finalized shortly.
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