JUMPING

Jumping (Show Jumping) – is one of the three Olympic equestrian disciplines.

Horse and rider are required to complete a course of obstacles, involving turns and changes of direction and located in an enclosed arena. The aim is to jump the course in the designed sequence with no mistakes. If any part of an obstacle is knocked down or if the horse refuses a jump, “faults” are incurred.

Depending on the type of the competition, the winner is the horse and rider combination which incurs the least number of penalties, completes the course in the fastest time or gains the highest number of points.

DRESSAGE

Dressage means training a horse to carry out precisely controlled movements in response to signals (minimal) from its rider.

A Dressage competition is about riders completing a series of movements (Test) in a Dressage Area. The Test is a written set of movements, which often has to be ridden from memory. Each movement is scored out of 10, sometimes 20 points. The rider with the highest marks / % is the winner. The test is judged by one or more judges who are looking for balance, rhythm and suppleness and most importantly, obedience of the horse and its harmony with the rider.

EVENTING

Eventing / One Day Event (ODE) / Horse Trials evolved from the training of cavalry horses. It combines three disciplines/tests in one competition and is run on a cumulative penalty basis. The competitor with the least penalties at the end is the winner.

The first of the three tests is Dressage - the good marks are turned into penalty points so they can be added to any jumping penalties.

The second test is Cross Country, where a course of natural obstacles is jumped in numerical order, inside an optimum time; being over the time, stopping at obstacles or rider/horse falls incurs penalties.

Test three is Jumping one round in an arena, the objective is to jump all the fences clear in numerical order and inside the time allowed. Fences knocked down and refusals incur penalties as does exceeding the time allowed.

The specification for each class  - (NZPC 65), (NZPC 80), (NZPC 95) and (NZPC 105) includes the distance of the cross country and show jumping courses, the speed cross country and jumping, the number of jump efforts and the dressage tests etc which can be found in Annex 5 of the Eventing NZ (ENZ) Rule book.

Eventing is a discipline at which NZ has excelled with numerous Olympic and World Championship successes. It is also one of a handful of sports where men and women compete on equal terms and the genuine amateur can compete against a world or Olympic champion.