Imagine when going to school or work just like any normal day. You have been there most of the day and now you want to go home, kick your feet up and relax. Well if you're an equestrian like me then we both know that, that doesn’t happen. As soon as I’m done with school I drop my stuff off at home and go to the barn. Horse riding is my sport. I train everyday at it, including weekends. On average I’m down at the barn for 3 to 4 hours a night. I ride two horses and they both need exercise and training. I work at it everyday and normally come back to the house with some sort of scrape or bruise. During the summer I have a horse show every Wednesday and almost every Saturday. And that's not including all the lessons I take. Now I have been riding since I was six years old and after all this time and experience I say that riding is a sport. Horse riding is a sport because the definition of ‘sport’ can fit horse riding just like any other sport, you will get more fit if you ride a horse just like any sport, and it takes a lot of practice and can be very competitive.
First of all the definition of ‘sport’ can fit horse riding just like any other sport. According to Dictionary.com the definition of ‘sport’ is, “an activity that you do for pleasure and that needs physical effort or skill, usually done in a special area and according to fixed rules.” I love riding, it is an escape for me and it definitely needs physical effort. When you first start riding you will get sore muscles that have never been sore before, it takes skill to know the distance between jumps and count strides, it is always done in an arena, and some horse shows have the most strict rules I have ever encountered. Now the Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘sport’ as, “an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc. or a particular form of this, especially in the out of doors.” I already told you riding requires skill, but what you didn’t know is that horse riding is also really competitive. Friends become enemies, and you can’t tell me that horse riding doesn’t happen outside. Trail riding can only happen outside. Finally if you look up the olympic website under the tab labeled ‘sport’s’ you will find equestrian events listed. If it is in the olympics it is a sport.
Second of all You will get more fit if you ride a horse just like any sport. According to The Equine Chronicle “Ever Wondered How Many Calories You Burn While Riding Your Horse?” It did a study that says, “riding a horse for 45 minutes at a walk, trot, and canter can burn up to 200 calories.” So when you ride a horse you burn calories. That is the same as if you were going for a walk or a jog. Also on Equus “The Horse-Riding Athlete Be Equestrian Fit” it tells you about the physical, mental, skill, and competition when it comes to horse riding. And I can tell you it can be very demanding of all of those aspects because you have to be a very strong competitor to place well and you have to be mentally tough with a lot of skill and practice under your belt. Personally I know that it can be very mentally and physically demanding. During a horse show, on average I have to memorize four to five different patterns, one or two for reigning, one for ranch riding, one for poles, one for barrels, and one for limited working cowhorse. And normally I don’t memorize them until I am done with the class before so that I don’t mix up the patterns, which sometimes only gives me five minutes in between classes to memorize an entire pattern. Another way it is mentally challenging is if your horse spooks you can have a total of one second to react and do the right thing or get dumped on your butt. It can also be very physically demanding because I ride two horses everyday, one of them trained but still needs to be worked with, and the other one that I have only been riding for 40 days so he doesn’t know how to do pretty much anything. If the horse that I am training acts up and we have to work through a problem I will most of the time come away panting because I am out of breath. And after two horses and three to four hours of working I normally come away sore because it is a workout.
Lastly and most importantly it takes a lot of practice and is very competitive. Like I have said before I practice/train everyday for three to four hours a day so I practice a lot. But it is also very competitive. In the summer I go to a horse show every Wednesday and almost every Saturday. One of the horse shows I go to is like a club, you have to be a member in order to show there and there is one horse show every month. There are four shows then and everyone there is like a giant extended family but as soon as you get into the show ring for a class everyone brings their a game and tries to win. Also in The Plaid Horse “Riding Is A Sport! Alright?” it tells you about how it requires muscle training, balance, communication (with a 1,200 lb animal that doesn’t speak your language), teamwork, and bravery. Everything that I have just listed from that article comes from practice, and if you don’t practice you won’t get good at them and any equestrian that works hard has all of these qualities. Since I am training my own horse from scratch I am also watching famous horse trainers on disc and seeing how they train a horse and doing it myself. The person on the disc is Clinton Anderson and he is a well known and skilled horse trainer that has been training horses for years. He said that you should work with your horse five to six days a week, this is also known as practice.
All in all people put more work into horse riding than what you think you see on a T.V screen. In other words horse riding is definitely a sport because the definition of ‘sport’ can fit horse riding just like any other sport, you will get more fit if you ride a horse just like any sport, and it takes a lot of practice and is very competitive. Now I want you to think about this, Michael Jordan makes basketball look easy but it’s not. It is the same thing with horse riding, we make it look easy but it’s not. Now what do you think? Is horse riding a sport, because I know it is.
Works Cited
Anderson, Clinton, director. Clinton Anderson Fundamentals.
Bennett, Alexis. “The Horse-Riding Athlete: Be Equestrian Fit.” The Horse Owner's Resource, 9 Jan. 2018, equusmagazine.com/riding/the-horse-riding-athlete-be-equestrian-fit.
Blocksdorf, Katherine. “No, the Horse Doesn't Do All the Work in Horseback Riding.” The Spruce Pets, The Spruce Pets, 17 Oct. 2019, www.thesprucepets.com/is-horseback-riding-really-a-sport-1886891.
“Ever Wondered How Many Calories You Burn While Riding Your Horse?” Equine Chronicle, 30 Apr. 2020, www.equinechronicle.com/ever-wondered-how-many-calories-you-burn-while-riding-your-horse/.
Ioc. “Dujardin Puts GB on Top in Dressage - London 2012 - Equestrian.” International Olympic Committee, IOC, 12 Sept. 2019, www.olympic.org/equestrian-eventing.
Mauldin, Lauren. “Lauren Mauldin.” The Plaid Horse - North America\'s Premier Horse Show Magazine, 4 Oct. 2019, www.theplaidhorse.com/2018/03/07/riding-is-a-sport-alright/.
“Sport.” Dictionary.com, Dictionary.com, 23 Mar. 2020, www.dictionary.com/browse/sport.
“Sport.” sport_1 Noun - Definition, Pictures, Pronunciation and Usage Notes | Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com, Oxford English Dictionary, 23 Mar. 2020, www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/sport_1.