In equestrian sports, women and men are not separated according to gender. What needs to be in other sports, so that men have no advantages, is in the riding not necessary. It’s more about the feeling than strength and endurance.
While in most of the sports women and men are separated, it makes riding no difference between the sexes. The equestrian sport is the only Olympic sport in which men and women in joint competitions compete against each other – in the dressage, the show jumping and the versatility.
“That’s perfectly fine,” says Otto Becker, national coach of the German show jumping rider. “In the meantime, the women are equal. Also, the horses are gone from the breeding here is becoming more modern and lighter, both sexes have the same opportunities.”
More coordination than strength
In other sports, the separation by gender is important because it back more than on the horse in strength, endurance, and speed. The men are superior to women in General. In the riding but these skills are less significant, it’s more about coordination and agility. And here women have no disadvantage compared to the men. “Riding is a very complex story. It’s like all balance sports with high coordinative demands,” explains Matthias Bojer, horse sports expert at the German sports University in Cologne, and even show jumping. “The maximum force is not the decisive factor, but rather a coordinative effects, and to communicate at a very fine level with the horse.”
This is also the current world champion, Simone Blum, who has won at the CHIO in Aachen, Germany, at her Mare Alice in the Nations Cup with the German team in second place confirmed. “A horse, like Alice, is incredibly fine and easy to ride,” says the 30-Year-old. “Because you have to do no pull-UPS on it, or a lot of leg force.”
Long lever, other charges
Blum’s team-mate Marcus Ehning goes even further: “riding is absolutely not a strength sport,” he says of the DW. “Accordingly, no male Strengths are in demand, but it is easy to feel for the horse.” And Ehning, who won last year in Aachen, Germany, on his best horse Pret A Tout the Nations Cup and the Grand Prix has plenty of room.
Successful Couple: Marcus Ehning on Pret A Tout after his victory in the Grand Prix of Aachen 2018
“Marcus Ehning is one of the feeling of the most demanding riders in the world,” confirms Matthias Bojer. “He is able to achieve with very little physical effort, great competition results, because he’s stylistically not so great on the horse.” However, Bojer, there are examples of very combative riding women, the zupackten in the competition situation much more than many a man. The differences are not just in the gender-justified, but in size and weight of the riders.
“If you take Ludger beerbaum as an example, a tall, slender guy, then all loads other than for small, light riders such as Marcus Ehning work with him,” says Bojer. The have a lot to do with Levers, which due to a long upper body and long limbs were different. “People like Ludger Beerbaum must certainly do something for themselves, in order to keep this large lever with everything in Balance and also to prevent wear and tear.”
Blum: “to Run is a Must go”
Regardless of whether it is big or small, man or woman but one thing: “sure, we speak in the top area of the right athletes, the need to be fit,” says Bojer, which has performed at the sports University in numerous studies on physical load of riders and horses and for years a development towards professionalization notes: “the understanding of the rider, to understand yourself as an athlete, has become much greater.”
World champion Simone Blum trained better in the saddle of their horses than on the Jogging
As good as all the top riders train today, not only in the saddle, but do Exercise to keep fit – some even with Personal trainers, the help of mental coaches is occasionally used. “If you would have said, a tab 20 or 30 years ago: ‘You have to make something for you: Running, balancing, gymnastics, or similar’,” says Bojer and smiles, “I think then you would get little response.”
This has changed fundamentally. “That we go for a Run, of course, is always a Must,” says Simone Blum, but at the same time, that you like the Training in the saddle better than the needed for success a kind of Compensation. A special strength training is not power to Blum, other riders can.
Becker: “more and more women are riding successfully”
The German world champion is one of only 14 women, the inaugural horse-riding at the CHIO Aachen in 2019 in the spring. In contrast, for 51 men. However, this disproportion is reflected not necessarily in the result lists again: In the Nations Cup won by Sweden, a team that was occupied with two women and two men. The German Team Blum and Alice with two zero rounds the best result.
Twice close: Luciana Diniz
Only five women have been able to win since 1927, the most important and hardest test of the Aachen tournament, the Big prize, but three of these five riders were wearing on the inside – including Meredith Michaels-Berbaum – in the years since 2005, in the victory list. The Portuguese rider Luciana Diniz was Second in the last two years, only narrowly beaten. The ratio is always more in favor of the women.
The national coach, Otto Becker assumes that it is only a matter of time until more women arrive at the top of equestrian sport. “If you look today in the horse-riding clubs, because 95 percent are girls, and just as the on the tournaments,” he says. “More and more women who will be riding it. They are riding very successfully, and you win.”
Becker’s protege Marcus Ehning is the gender-independent and equal opportunities in the riding twice given by: in the saddle, but also including: “we have mares, geldings and stallions – the start all,” he says jokingly. “I see really no difference.”