Great Britain’s Nations Cup title another milestone in country’s long history with eventing

This year’s Nations Cup series featured competitions in Vairano, Italy, Houghton Hall, Great Britain, Strzegom, Poland, The Plains, USA, Le Pin au Haras, France, Millstreet, Ireland, Waregem, Belgium and Boekelo. British athletes took part in seven of the eight stages and finished with 570 points for the overall title, ahead of podium-mates France and Germany. 

The three countries are longtime European rivals (with each having won Olympic Team gold medals) in eventing, a sport dating back more than a century which has evolved through different eras along the way. According to American equestrian Jim Wofford, those phases can broadly be defined as military, foxhunting, professional and technical. 

Eventing first became an Olympic sport at the Stockholm Games in 1912, where only amateur military riders could take part. As the Fédération Équestre Internationale describes, the underlying purpose of the discipline was to “test the cavalry on their fitness and suitability”, with dressage reflecting parade skills and jumping demonstrating speed and stamina. As with other equestrian sports, women and non-commissioned officers were not allowed to compete at the time.

In the ‘Classic’ endurance and speed test of the sport, riders faced diverse challenges over more than 20 miles: roads and tracks, steeplechase and cross-country. “The true value of the various tests lay in the ability of both horse and rider to undergo…. a physical and mental examination and then to remain ‘in service,’” Wofford explains. “We tend to forget that the original purpose of the event was not competition but completion. Cavalry horses and the young officers who rode them had to be tough.”

In 1949, the 10th Duke of Beaufort organised the first Badminton Horse Trials on his estate, with the goal of honing the riding skills of athletes in his country (and theoretically, those engaged in fox hunting, a practice dating back to previous centuries). Today, the storied CCI4* is one of the flagship international competitions in eventing alongside the Burghley Horse Trials, the latter also in England – cementing the nation’s central role in the history of the sport.

Over time, eventing (often called ‘The Military’ in the past like the competition which just wrapped up in Boekelo, the Military Boekelo – Enschede) evolved, allowing civilian dress and, most importantly, the participation of female riders. The United States’ Helena DuPont Wright was the first to ride at the Olympics, in Tokyo in 1964, where she won a Team silver.

As Wofford notes in Practical Horseman, eventing’s professional and technical eras began in 1984 and 2004 respectively, with the offical opening of the Olympics to professional athletes and the move to a short format which got rid of endurance and placed dressage, cross-country and show jumping on a more equal footing. “Eventing in the Technical Era is not so much a complete test of horse and rider as it is a competition of three highly technical parts,” he adds; in other words, the goal today is not a successful completion but a successful competition. And with British national team High Performance Coach Christopher Bartle now back on home soil after helping guide Germany to the top of the sport, it’s a safe bet that riders in the country will carry on their status as perennial podium contenders.