Equestrianism, commonly known as horse riding or horseback riding, includes the disciplines of riding, driving, and vaulting. This broad description includes the use of horses for practical working purposes, transportation, recreational activities, artistic or cultural exercises, and competitive sport.
A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclists as well as other object manipulation and stunt-oriented artists. The term circus also describes the field of performance, training and community which has followed various formats through its 250-year modern history. Although not the inventor of the medium, Newcastle-under-Lyme born Philip Astley is credited as the father of the modern circus.
Philip Astley was an English equestrian, circus owner, and inventor, regarded as being the "father of the modern circus". Modern circus, as an integrated entertainment experience that includes music, domesticated animals, acrobats, and clowns, traces its heritage to Astley's Amphitheatre, a riding school that Astley founded in London following the success of trick-riding displays given by him and his wife Patty Jones in 1768. Astley's first competitor was equestrian Charles Hughes, who had previously worked with Astley. Together with Charles Dibdin, a famous author of pantomimes, Hughes opened a rival amphitheatre in London, which Dibdin called the Royal Circus and Equestrian Philharmonic Academy.
Shashlik, or shashlyck, is a dish of skewered and grilled cubes of meat, similar to or synonymous with shish kebab. It is known traditionally by various other names in Azerbaijan, the Caucasus, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and from the 19th century became popular as shashlik across much of the Russian Empire and nowadays in the Russian Federation and former Soviet Union republics.
Don Cossacks or Donians, are Cossacks who settled along the middle and lower Don. Historically, they lived within the former Don Cossack Host, which was either an independent or an autonomous democratic republic in present-day Southern Russia and parts of the Donbas region of Ukraine, from the end of the 16th century until 1918. As of 1992, by presidential decree of the Russian Federation, Cossacks can be enrolled on a special register. A number of Cossack communities have been reconstituted to further Cossack cultural traditions, including those of the Don Cossack Host. Don Cossacks have had a rich military tradition - they played an important part in the historical development of the Russian Empire and participated in most of its major wars.
Frank T. Hopkins was a self-proclaimed professional horseman who at one time performed with the Ringling Brothers Circus. He was a long-distance rider who claimed to have won 400 races and was recognized by his contemporaries as supporting the preservation of the mustang.
Trick riding refers to the act of performing stunts while horseback riding, such as the rider standing upright on the back of a galloping horse, using a specially designed saddle with a reinforced steel horn, and specialized kossak loops for hands and feet. The horse is likewise galloping free. Trick riding is not to be confused with equestrian vaulting, which is an internationally recognized competitive sport governed by the Federation Equestre Internationale (FEI).
The Pontic–Caspian Steppe is a steppe extending across Eastern Europe to Central Asia, formed by the Caspian and Pontic steppes. It stretches from the northern shores of the Black Sea to the northern area around the Caspian Sea, where it ends at the Ural-Caspian narrowing, which joins it with the Kazakh Steppe in Central Asia, making it a part of the larger Eurasian Steppe. Geopolitically, the Pontic-Caspian Steppe extends from northeastern Bulgaria and southeastern Romania through Moldova and eastern Ukraine, through the Northern Caucasus of southern Russia, and into the Lower Volga region where it straddles the border of southern Russia and western Kazakhstan. Biogeographically, it is a part of the Palearctic realm, and of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome.
The peoples of the Caucasus, or Caucasians, are a diverse group comprising more than 50 ethnic groups throughout the Caucasus.
A chokha, also known as a cherkeska, is a woolen coat with a high neck that is part of the traditional male dress of peoples of the Caucasus. It was in wide use among Avars, Abazins, Abkhazians, Eastern Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Balkars, Chechens, Circassians, Georgians, Ingush, Karachays, Nogais, Ossetians, Tats, the peoples of Dagestan, as well as Terek and Kuban Cossacks who adopted it from the aforementioned peoples.
Wild West shows were traveling vaudeville performances in the United States and Europe that existed around 1870–1920. The shows began as theatrical stage productions and evolved into open-air shows that depicted romanticized stereotypes of cowboys, Plains Indians, army scouts, outlaws, and wild animals that existed in the American West. While some of the storylines and characters were based on historical events, others were fictional or sensationalized.
Bee Ho Gray was a Western performer who spent 50 years displaying his skills in Wild West shows, vaudeville, circus, silent films, and radio. While he was primarily known as an expert at trick roping, he was also skilled with knife throwing, bullwhips, trick riding, and the banjo. He wove all of these skills together in a homely comic routine. Throughout his long career, he was constantly compared to Will Rogers, which was befitting, considering the two performers worked together several times and developed their acts together in the early 1900s.
Georgian horsemen were notable participants of the Wild West shows in the 1890s. Billed as Russian Cossacks, the riders from Georgia featured in circuses and shows well into the first half of the 20th century. Their performances, featuring trick riding and folk dance, were extremely popular and exerted significant influence on cowboys in the United States.
Jereed is a traditional Turkish equestrian team sport played outdoors on horseback in which the objective is to score points by throwing a blunt wooden javelin at opposing team's horsemen. Played by Turkic peoples in Central Asia as the essential sporting and ceremonial game, it was brought to Anatolia during the westward migration in the beginning of the 11th century.
Hippodrama, horse drama, or equestrian drama is a genre of theatrical show blending circus horsemanship display with popular melodrama theatre.
John Edward Joyce was an American horse trainer. He was colorful figure in the world of horsemanship and animal training, who had nearly a ten-year career with Buffalo Bill on his Buffalo Bill's Wild West. Joyce toured throughout Europe until the late 1920s. He retired in upstate New York and died June 16, 1934.
The papakha is a wool hat worn by men throughout the Caucasus and also in uniformed regiments in the region and beyond. The word papakha is of Turkic origin (papakh).
Wild Westing was the term used by Native Americans for their performing with Buffalo Bill's Wild West and similar shows. Between 1887 and World War I, over 1,000 Native Americans went "Wild Westing." Most were Oglala Lakota from their reservation in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, the first Lakota people to perform in these shows. During a time when the Bureau of Indian Affairs was intent on promoting Native assimilation, William Frederick Cody used his influence with U.S. government officials to secure Native American performers for his Wild West. Cody treated Native American employees as equals with white cowboys.
Ivan Mazepa (1639–1709) was a significant figure in the history of Ukraine. One story about him says that as a young man, he was caught in flagrante with a noblewoman, whose husband punished him by tying him naked to a wild horse and setting them free; eventually he reached the Cossacks and became their military leader. This legend caught the attention of the English poet Lord Byron, whose Mazeppa (1819) brought the events to wider attention. His narrative poem inspired many paintings, particularly by French Romantics, which in turn stimulated musical compositions, stage plays, more poems, and so on. New life was breathed into the equestrian tale when it was transposed to the American Wild West. With the independence of Ukraine in 1991, the figure of Mazepa is once again on the international stage.
Christine Tsintsadze was a Gurian horsewoman from what is now the country of Georgia, who performed trick riding in Wild West shows in the United States. She initially performed with Pawnee Bill and was retained when that show was merged with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show to create the Wild West and Great Far East show. She was particularly known for her trick riding skills.
