A horse show is a judged exhibition of horses and ponies. Many different horse breeds and equestrian disciplines hold competitions worldwide, from local to the international levels. Most horse shows run from one to three days, sometimes longer for major, all-breed events or national and international championships in a given discipline or breed. Most shows consist of a series of different performances, called classes, wherein a group of horses with similar training or characteristics compete against one another for awards and, often, prize money.
Equitation is the art or practice of horse riding or horsemanship.
The United States Equestrian Federation is the national governing body for most equestrian sports in the United States. It also recruits, trains, and governs American teams in international equestrian competition at the Olympics and other competitions governed by the International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI).
The equestrian events at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo included show jumping, dressage and eventing. All three disciplines had both individual and team competitions. The competitions were held from 16 to 24 October 1964. These events took place at Karuizawa, which would become the first city to host Summer and Winter Olympic event when it hosted the curling events for the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano.
Hunt seat is a style of forward seat riding commonly found in North American horse shows. Along with dressage, it is one of the two classic forms of English riding. The hunt seat is based on the tradition of fox hunting. Hunt seat competition in North America includes both flat and over fences for show hunters, which judge the horse's movement and form, and equitation classes, which judge the rider's ability both on the flat and over fences. The term hunt seat may also refer to any form of forward seat riding, including the kind seen in show jumping and eventing.
Snowman was a former plow horse of mixed breed ancestry, possibly a cross of a grade horse with a US Army Remount stallion. He was purchased for $80 on his way to a slaughterhouse and became a champion in show jumping in the United States during the 1950s. During his career he was known as "The Cinderella Horse" due to his "rags to riches" story.
Eddie Macken is an Irish equestrian show jumper, who was a member of the Irish team - along with Paul Darragh, Capt. Con Power, and James Kernan – that won the Aga Khan Cup three years in a row. Other notable career highlights include a record four consecutive Hickstead Derby wins, two individual silver medals at the Show Jumping World Championships, 1974 with Pele and 1978 on Boomerang, and an individual silver medal at the 1977 European Championships with Pele. Macken has many major Grand Prix victories worldwide. Many of Macken's achievements were gained in partnership with his Irish bred gelding, Boomerang. From Macken's first rides with Boomerang as a four-year-old in 1970, the pair blazed a trail of wins that lasted a decade.
George H. Morris is an American equestrian. He won team silver in show jumping at the 1960 Rome Olympics and is considered a founding father of hunt seat equitation. He was chef d'equipe for the United States show jumping team, which won Olympic gold under his leadership, from 2005 until 2013. He also served as chef d'equipe for the Brazilian show jumping team at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Throughout his career, Morris has been a "proponent of the forward seat" and wrote several books on the subject, including Hunter Seat Equitation. Morris trained students at his Hunterdon Stables and traveling clinics, producing nationally and internationally successful riders, including Olympic champions. In 2019, after a United States Center for SafeSport investigation, Morris was banned for life from the United States Equestrian Federation (USEF) due to sexual misconduct with minors. Morris is likewise banned from coaching international teams for any country.
Paul Schockemöhle is a German former showjumper. He was a successful international show jumping equestrian in the 1970s and 1980s at individual and team events in Olympic Games, World Championships and European Championships. He was three times European Champion on his best horse Deister. He is the brother of Alwin Schockemöhle, another leading German rider.
Hans Günter Winkler was a German show jumper. He is the only show jumper to have won five Olympic gold medals and a total of seven Olympic medals, and to compete and win medals in six different Olympic Games. In the 1950s and 1960s Winkler was one of Germany's most popular athletes.
Joseph "Joe" Halpin Fargis IV is an American showjumper and Olympic champion. Fargis won showjumping individual gold and team gold at the 1984 Summer Olympics. He won showjumping team silver at the 1988 Summer Olympics. He is the owner of Sandron Farm.
Melanie Smith is an equestrian from the United States and Olympic champion.
Francis Davis "Frank" Chapot was an American equestrian who competed at six consecutive Olympic Games - from 1956 to 1976 - and won two silver medals in team show jumping, at Rome 1960 and Munich 1972. Chapot was chef d'equipe of the American equestrian team from 1980 to 2004, leading them to their first Olympic team gold at Los Angeles 1984. Additionally, he coached the American show jumping team from 1968 until his retirement in 2005. Chapot is also known for breeding and training Gem Twist, a champion showjumper named World's Best Horse in 1990. In later life, Chapot became a jump course designer and judge. In 2001, he was awarded the United States Equestrian Federation's Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to horse sport.
Colonel John William Russell was an American equestrian who won a bronze medal at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, Finland. After serving in the United States Army during World War II, he began competing in international equestrian tournaments and was eventually selected to join the United States team at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. After his success at the 1952 edition, he continued to participate in events around the world, but military duties and a broken bone in his horse caused him to miss the 1956 Summer Olympics. He retired from active competition that year and became the head of United States Modern Pentathlon Training Center, where he coached six United States Olympic modern pentathlon delegations, twenty-two World Championship teams, and helped organize two World Modern Pentathlon Championships. He retired and opened the Russell Equestrian Center and was inducted into the United States Show Jumping Hall of Fame in 2001.
Get a Horse! is a 2013 American animated comedy short film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and directed by Lauren MacMullan. Combining black-and-white hand-drawn animation and color computer animation, the short features the characters of the late 1920s Mickey Mouse cartoons.
Rodney Jenkins is a former show jumping rider and member of the United States Equestrian Team (USET), inducted into the United States Show Jumping Hall of Fame. He rode hunters and jumpers competitively from the early 1960s to the late 1980s, winning a record 70 Grand Prix-level competitions. After retiring from the show ring, he became a race horse trainer.
The Canadian Equestrian Team or CET collectively describes the athletes that represent Canada at the highest levels of international equestrian competition, specifically at the World Championship, Olympic, and Paralympic levels.
Kathryn Hallowell "Kathy" Kusner is an American equestrian and Olympic medalist in show jumping. She was one of the first woman who rode for the United States Equestrian Team (USET), the first licensed female jockey, and the first American women to win an Olympic medal in equestrian competition.
Neal Shapiro is an American equestrian and was a silver medalist in team jumping and Bronze medalist in individual jumping in the 1972 Munich Olympics, where he became the first American Equestrian jumper to win two medals and only the third U.S. rider to win an individual medal in an Olympic show jumping event. In 1967, he began driving and training harness horses in trotting and pacing competitions, a career he continued after retiring from competitive show jumping in 1976. He purchased a stable, Hayfever Farm in 1976, and in addition to acting as a trainer, he began a career as a standardbred harness horse owner. In 2007, he moved his stables, Hayfever Farm, to Robbinsville, New Jersey. He continued to train equestrians and horses, and after ending his training career, returned to riding show horses on a limited basis in 1998. He was jumping coach for the US Equestrian Team at the Maccabiah Games in 2013.
Lawrence Muzzy Lansburgh was an American producer, director, and screenwriter known for his films featuring animals.
