WELLINGTON COUNTY – Hold your horses, because there’s a new sport taking the equestrian world by storm.
Practiced globally and in other provinces, the equestrian sport of vaulting is gaining traction in Ontario.
“It’s basically gymnastics on a horse,” said coach and Ontario Equestrian Vaulting Association board member Jennifer Walter.
“It would be like taking a floor routine in gymnastics and putting it on horseback.”
While new to Ontario, the sport itself has been around since the days of Ancient Crete, where bulls were used in place of horses.
The sport was then adopted by the ancient Romans, who as part of the Roman games, began to practice acrobatic displays on horseback.
Modern vaulting as we know it today was developed in post-war Germany as a means to introduce children to equestrian sports, and in 1983, equestrian vaulting became an official international equestrian sport.
“It’s pretty new to Ontario, like, it’s definitely more popular overseas and out west,” said Walter.
“We do schooling shows currently in Ontario, but we can’t have FEI (a show governed by the Federation Equestre Internationale, an organization that sets the rules and standards for international equestrian sports) shows yet because of Rowan’s law (an Ontario law that aims to prevent concussions in amateur sports).”
The sport was brought to Ontario in 2009 by equestrian vaulting trainer Michelle Wilson. It has since expanded, with 11 clubs across the province thus far.
According to Walter, FEI shows can get pretty intense when it comes time to impress the judges.
“Basically, they (those competing) have to do a round of compulsory,” said Walter.
“Compulsories depend on what division an athlete is in, if they’re in walk, trot or canter, and refers to what their moves are.”
Each competitor will have to complete five moves on which they will be judged. After judging, each competitor is invited back into the ring to complete a freestyle routine, where the final score is decided based on the sum of three scores.
“In their freestyle routine the lunger gets a score, your horse gets a score, and then you get an artistic score, which is like … does your rhythm match the horse and does your outfit match the music that you’re going with,” said Walter.
“You get a score for every move you make, or deductions. Then they add those, so they add up all your moves, and then your sum of the deductions, and then that’s how you get your percentage (final score).”
“I took a judge’s course last year. I did an auditor’s part, just so I could learn more [about] what they’re looking for, what they’re not looking for … what’s being judged, and how they judge it, and it – it’s actually pretty intense,” she added.
“There are so many more things that come into play in this that they’re looking for, and once they get into like the FEI levels, which is world vaulting, there’s three or four judges that are scoring the same thing. So, then all their scores must be within a certain kind of point of each other.”
Walter and her family will be traveling to Austria in August to attend the World Juniors Vaulting competition.
“[There is] nobody from Ontario, but there is a team of vaulters that will be going out from Calgary, Alberta and BC that will be competing in worlds, which is pretty cool,” said Walter.
The competition will run from July 30 to Aug. 3.
“Hopefully someday in the future, we will be able to host those kinds of shows. But currently, our kids that are FEI kids or higher competitive kids in Ontario, we actually bring our kids to Alberta and BC to compete, just because our schools currently are just schooling shows in Ontario.”
Walter said she hopes to see FEI shows come to Ontario as the sport’s reach continues to expand, and she’s holding out hope that she will see an Ontario team compete at worlds.
“Fingers crossed that in the next couple years, we could see some of our Ontario kids competing at worlds, which would be pretty awesome for Ontario,” she said.
“And to see how far this has all come with basically a bunch of people bringing stuff in, and then parents and coaches all coming together to make it this sport really succeed in Ontario.”
Walter will be hosting vaulting shows on May 31, June 1 and Aug. 16 and 17 at the REACH Huron centre in Clinton, with the final show of the year being held Oct. 4 and 5 at the Spencerville fairgrounds in Spencerville.
Anyone interested in the sport can contact Walter at freelancevaulters@hotmail.com or follow @freelancevaulters on Facebook and Instagram for updates on beginner classes.
