In its origin, dressage riding was a systematic way of training horses for combat, today it’s an international sport. The most referenced division of the sport is the Kur, which is a musical freestyle, also known as horse ballet, and commonly seen at the Olympics. The Kur is also the main cause for much of the ridicule the sport receives. Dressage commonly has three main stereotypes: it is a hobby reserved for the upper-class, it’s a female sport, and the simple belief that it’s easy, since the horse does all the work.
Horses are expensive animals, but to excel in this sport, one doesn’t have to be rich or blue-blooded. Many now famous riders started out as mere stable hands or grooms. Karl Hester and Charlotte Dujardin, two members of the British dressage team, are both prime examples of people that made a name for themselves through talent and a lot of hard work (Blackman). Hester began working as a groom in a therapeutic riding center at the age of 16; thereafter he received a position riding for Dr. Rudolf Bechtolsheimer, a member of the 1995 British dressage team in the European championships (Briggs). Dujardin, 2012 Olympic Gold medalist, is from a middle class family, buying her first horse after inheriting money from her deceased grandmother, she officially began her career working as a groom for the aforementioned Hester (Moss). Although these people started out very small in the dressage world, with no name or money to claim, today they belong to the top riders globally.
The dressage scene is mainly dominated by female riders; but in its origin, being a military sport, only men were allowed to participate in this discipline. After cavalries began to disband many officers who no longer had jobs in the militia began to...
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...ing” Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI). Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI), 31 Oct. 2012. Web. 5 Nov. 2012.
Moss, Stephen. “London 2013: Charlotte Dujardin strikes second dressage Olympic gold.” Guardian. Guardian, 9 Aug. 2012. Web. 5 Nov. 2012.
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Briggs, Simon. “London 2012 Olympics: forget class - hard work and dedication won dressage gold.” The Telegraph. The Telegraph, 10 Aug. 2012. Web. 5 Nov. 2012.
“Dressage - FEI World Individual Dressage Ranking” Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI). Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI), 31 Oct. 2012. Web. 5 Nov. 2012.
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The first virtue that can be obtained through the world wide sport of rodeo is patience. Because of the fact that rodeo is such a big sport, there are many competitors. With this in mind and the fact that events take more than a few mere seconds, rodeos can be an all day event. In a high school rodeo in Laramie this spring, there were nearly 200 runs or rides being made throughout the course of just one day. So you can imagine the...
The racing of horses in Ireland is as old as the nation itself. In the pre-Christian era we have evidence that the Red Branch Knights raced among themselves, matching their horses against each other, as did the Fianna warriors in the third century A.D. Racing today is huge in the country for our employment and for our economy. Racing in the early days struggled without a governing body and without a proper structure. This all seemed to change once the Jockey Club was formed on the idea of the English Jockey in Newmarket. However, the Jockey failed as money issues and other problems led to its demise. This essay aims to examine firstly the impact of the English Jockey Club in Ireland, secondly why the Jockey Club failed, and third the rise of the Turf Club and the procedures taken to make it a success.
As the base of this essay is on how the Olympics have been used in the
One way I do this is due to the fact that horses aren’t cheap. Not only is there an expensive upfront cost, but there’s also the all year round expenses like feed bills, expensive hay prices, vet bills, the farrier bill, and the pricy tack (which is all the equipment needed to ride and own horses). Owning and showing horses is one of the most costly activities a person can get into. The majority of my paycheck goes to my horse and into my gas tank to take him places. Kron states that “besides control we use things to compete,”(130). Another way that Boomer’s a sign of my status is through competing with him. To compete, I take him to barrel races and game shows to see who can do the patterns the fastest. At barrel races and game shows we try to get the fastest time to win money and or ribbons. We don’t usually come in first, but all I care about is doing our best and improving our times. This establish a sign of my status because it not only helps me raise it in the horse world, but I also gain more respect because I’m more worried about doing my best and keeping my horse healthy versus just caring about the the money and buying the horses that’ll get me that even if I had to discard horses to get there. Meaning if a horse isn’t good enough or fast enough I wouldn’t sell them unlike some people do. This is a common practice in the horse racing
Burfoot, Amby. "The Disabled Athlete Has an Unfair Advantage." Footloose: Amby Burfoot's Notes from the Road (24 June 2007). Rpt. in The Olympics. Ed. Tamara L. Roleff. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2009. General Onefile. Web.
Rodeo was believed to have started as friendly competition between ranch hands to see who could complete daily tasks the fastest and most efficient. That eventually grew into the “American sport” we have today, though it’s not only practiced in America (About). It is seen by many as a way to celebrate America’s western roots. Prescott Arizona holds the title of world’s oldest formalized rodeo. On July 4th 1888 businessmen there organized a “Cowboy Tournament” that later grew to be “a multimillion dollar enterprise with more than 700 professional rodeos in 50 states” (Anderson). It may seem and look a little different than it did back then,” but it still involves just as much skill and horsemanship as before” (About).
Track and field-style events are among the oldest of all sporting competitions, as running, jumping and throwing are natural and universal forms of human physical expression. The first recorded examples of organized track and field events at a sports festival are the Ancient Olympic Games. At the first Games in 776 BC in Olympia, Greece, and only one event was contested which was the stadion footrace. We have track athletes to distinguish who is the best athlete for the event in which they are competing in and the athletes can be distinguished from high school, college, and even countries. All tracks athletes come in different shape and sizes, but one thing they
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4.)"Rodeo Facts: The Case Against Rodeos." Winning the Case Against Cruelty. Animal Legal Defense Fund, 1979. Web. 14 Apr. 2014. .
Donnelly, Michele, and Peter Donnelly. "Play the Game: The London 2012 Olympics - a Gender Equality Audit." Play the Game: The London 2012 Olympics - a Gender Equality Audit. Play The Game, 3 Apr. 2013. Web. 03 June 2014.
Grant, Dustan. "Analysis of The Rocking Horse Winner by D.H. Lawrence." Prezi.com. 2 Mar 2013. 21 Feb 2014. http://prezi.com /