“What you do from the heart is sincere.”

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Horseathlon®Competition Concept

Horses are not sports equipment, but sensitive and delicate creatures.

Anyone who takes part in an equestrian event with their horse bears a great responsibility.

 

At a Horseathlon® competition, the focus is on the horse’s motivated cooperation. Work is done with understanding, affection and respect. The Horseathlon® competition is not about achieving the goals of “higher”, “faster” or “further” in a short amount of time. Anyone who takes into account the aspects of equine training using Horseathlon® will quickly realize what the true goal of an equine sport must be: the confirmation of solid and sensitive daily work on the way to becoming “more precise”, “more beautiful” and “more suitable for the horse”.

Horseathlon® competition is

  •     an eventing competition with three disciplines: trail/dressage ridden, ground work and composure, each with eight tasks.
  •     Open to all equids: Horse, pony, mule, donkey. All breeds are welcome.
  •     open to all horse lovers, both in mounted and guided competitions and classes.
  •     open to all equestrian riding styles, be it English, Western, Classical or gaited.
  •     open to all ages and all levels. The different categories provide an excellent opportunity for both horse and rider to compete in a test that suits their ability and performance level.

The categories:

D1: Category ridden difficult
D2: Category ridden medium
D3: Category ridden easy
F1: Category guided difficult
F2: Category guided medium
F3: Category guided easy

Horseathlon®Competition rules here (Currently available in French or German)

A 2** (two star) Horseathlon® has three courses with 8 obstacles each.

A 1* (one star) Horseathlon® has one large course with 15 obstacles with only 5 obstacles per discipline (serenity, trail guided and trail ridden). These competitions are easily run on smaller grounds and require less space and equipment.

History

The Horseathlon® competition concept was initiated in 2004 by Helmut Piller and successfully carried out in cooperation with the Swiss Equestrian Federation for over 10 years. During this time many new insights could be gained. Unfortunately, these experiences were not, or only partially, implemented in recent years. For this reason, the Horseathlon® team has decided to organize Horseathlon® competitions again itself as of 2016. Horseathlon will be back in a new, fresh, revised and more horse-friendly form.

Horseathlon® has also evolved for the benefit of the horse thanks to many dedicated and motivated people. At this point they deserve a heartfelt thank you. To list all the many names would go beyond the scope of this article, but two should nevertheless be mentioned by name as they have invested a lot of time, commitment and heart into this project:

Our special thanks go to Uschi Regli, Wauwil and Pascal Losey, Avry-sur-Matran