Equestrian Eventing

Vital Information:

Venue: Greenwich Park

Dates: Saturday 28th July – Tuesday 31st July

Competing Athletes: 75

Medal Events: 2

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The Basics

The Eventing competition takes places over four days. As with all three Equestrian disciplines on the Olympic programme, the competition features both Individual and Team events, and men and women compete against each other on equal terms.

Dressage fills the first two days of the Eventing competition. Each horse and rider performs a dressage test in front of a panel of judges. The judges’ scores are converted into penalty points, which are carried forward to the next stage of the competition.

Day 3 is given over to the cross-country test, held over a beautiful but tough course in Greenwich Park containing up to 45 jumps. Every horse/rider combination is given penalty points for jumping errors and time penalties, which are added to any penalty points awarded during the dressage test to give a total score.

The Eventing competition gets a grandstand finish on Day 4 with the jumping tests (widely known in the UK as ‘show jumping’). Once again, riders and horses are given penalty points for jumping errors and time penalties, which are added to their previous dressage and cross-country scores to determine the overall rankings. The first jumping test will decide the placings in the Team event; after this has been completed, there’s a second jumping test to determine the winners of the Individual competition.

Jargon Buster

• Fault: Penalty points awarded for making a mistake: for instance, a refusal at an obstacle, or exceeding the optimum time.
• Horse inspection: Each horse is checked by judges and vets, both before the dressage and after the cross-country element.
• Obstacle: Any fence or jump in the cross-country and jumping courses.
• Optimum time: The target time in the Cross-Country event. Each second above the optimum time carries a penalty of 0.4 faults.
• Run-out: When a horse shakes off the rider’s control and runs around a fence instead of jumping over it.