Hiba Chader - equestrian
I’m Hiba and I’m 15 years old. I’ve been horse riding since I was 8 and I absolutely love the sport! I started riding on an adorable, fluffy little Welsh pony called Pepsi, who was a bit of a handful and very cheeky at times - but who I adored and who taught me how to ride. Now I ride a beautiful 16.1hh Hanoverian called May. I really like dressage and cross country - but my absolute favourite is show jumping!
Some people think that horse riding is easy and the rider just sits there while the horse does all the work for you - but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Horse riding involves an incredible amount of skill, strength, coordination, fitness, muscle control and determination, all while trying to control an animal with a mind and will of its own and that weighs around half a ton!!!
I’m really excited to be reporting on the equestrian games taking place this year for We are girls in Sport!
Here is Hiba’s report:
Incredible performances by female equestrians in Tokyo this year!!
By Hiba Chader
The Olympic equestrian event involves three separate disciplines: 1) dressage, 2) eventing and 3) show jumping and each discipline has an individual and team (country) element. Men and women compete against each other in the individual events and teams are made up of men and women (or there can be all male and all female teams representing each country). Teams in each discipline are always made up of three horse and rider pairs, all of which are also competing for a medal in the individual event.
1) Dressage is often referred to as the ‘dancing horses’ event – where horse and rider work in perfect harmony to perform a beautiful, but extremely complicated routine that involve 16 complex and controlled moves to the rhythm and beat of accompanying music. Riders design their own freestyle test, which are judged by a panel of judges and are scored by percentage based on how difficult the move is (such as the Piaffe, pirouettes and flying changes) and how perfectly they execute and perform the moves.
Women dominated the individual dressage event; with Jessica von Bredow-Werndl riding Delera and Isabell Werth riding Bella Rose taking the gold and silver medals for Germany with terrific scores of 91.732% and 89.657% respectively. For Great Britain, Charlotte Dujardin riding her relatively young and inexperienced horse, Gio, scored an impressive 88.543% and took the Bronze medal. With two of their riders scoring top scores, it was inevitable that Germany, along with their team mate, Dorothy Schneider riding Showtime, would win the gold medal in the team dressage event. What made it even more exciting was that the German team was an all-female one! Winning the team event meant that the Germany’s, Isabell Werth won her 12th Olympic medal (7 Golds & 5 silvers!!) after having competed in 6 Olympic games!! This means that she has the most Olympic medals won by any equestrian athlete. A true legend of the sport who certainly shows no sign of slowing down!! The USA and Great Britain teams took the silver and bronze medals, making Great Britain’s incredible rider, Charlotte Dujardin, the most successful female equestrian and GB’s second most successful female Olympian on record with a total of six Olympic medals!
The All-female German Dressage team, Dorothee Schneider riding Showtime, Jessica von Bredow-Werndl riding Delera and Isabell Werth riding Bella Rose, who won Gold! (photo credit: Reuters, David Goldman)
2) Eventing involves each rider completing in three separate disciplines on the same horse with scores added up from each discipline, which includes dressage, cross country and show jumping. This event takes an incredible amount of fitness, strength and skill on the part of both horse and rider. In the individual eventing, Germany’s amazing rider, Julia Krajewski riding Amande de B’Neville, won the Gold medal – making her the first female athlete in history to achieve this incredible feat!
Germany’s Julia Krajewski riding Amande de B’Neville – the first ever female to win Gold in the individual eventing event (© Comité Equestre de Saumur / Photos Les Garennes from Horse & Sport Magazine)
And in the team event, Great Britain won the gold medal for the first time in nearly 50 years, making Laura Collett (riding her horse, London 52) the first British female Olympic eventing champion. This is an incredible achievement, seeing as it was her first Olympic games and since she is blind in one eye following a horrific riding accident in 2013 that left her with broken ribs, a punctured lung, lacerated liver, fractured shoulder and in coma for 6 days!
Laura Collett riding London 52, the first British female Olympic eventing champion in the team event (photo credit: Horse & Hound)
3) In show jumping, each horse and rider pair must complete a course of between 12-15 large jumps (up to 1.6m and up to 2.2m wide!!) and obstacles within a certain time limit. Each athlete is ranked based on the number penalties and time faults that they accrue during the course, so that the equestrian with the least faults places the highest. Four penalties are given for each pole knocked down or for a refusal and eight penalties are given if the rider falls. Out of the 75 show jumping athletes to start the qualifying rounds this year, only 30 advanced to the final round. Out of the final 30, only two females qualified for the final, which unfortunately meant that no females won medals. Never in the history of show jumping at the Olympics has a female won the individual show jumping event despite dominating in the other disciplines (especially dressage) - this is probably due to the numbers, male equestrians outnumber females in the top 100 world rankings meaning that fewer women are even selected to compete in the Olympics.
However, in the team show jumping event, the amazing Malin Baryard-Johnsson (riding Indiana) was the only female member of the winning Swedish team. While Laura Kraut (on Baloutine) and Jessica Springsteen (riding Don Juan van de Donkhoeve) were members of the silver medallist team for USA (and just in case you thought that Springsteen sounded like a familiar name, yes Jessica is the daughter of the famous singer Bruce Springsteen and she rode amazingly considering this was her first Olympic games, finishing in 31st Place in the individual event, which mean she only just missed out on being among the top 30 qualifiers!).
Sweden’s Malin Baryard-Johnsson (riding Indiana) was the only female member of the Swedish show jumping team, who won the Gold medal (Photo credit: Horse & Hound)
Although there are some areas that need improvement when it comes to opening up access and increasing participation for female equestrians at the elite level, it is clear that female equestrians are exceptionally talented athletes and incredibly impressive riders that are able to achieve amazing feats and accomplish extraordinary success! I have found watching these women overwhelmingly inspirational and I am certain that women will only continue to improve and achieve even more in future Olympic Games! And who knows, maybe I’ll be one of them!!!