Equestrian
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
98 free Equestrian trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Equestrian sport is the only Olympic discipline where the athlete has four legs and a rider, and the only one where men and women have competed head to head since 1952. Horse events were at the 1900 Paris Games, and eventing began as a cavalry test. These 98 questions cover the three Olympic disciplines and the sports around them. Dressage gets the arena letters, the piaffe and passage, the 20 by 60 metre arena and the Grand Prix Freestyle. Show jumping brings the four-fault knockdown, the jump-off, Federico Caprilli's forward seat and the inclosure acts that made English horses learn to jump. Eventing covers Badminton, Burghley, the short format and the 1912 Stockholm endurance test. There is polo too, from chukkas and handicaps to Argentina's grip on the game, plus the riders: Isabell Werth's seven Olympics, Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro. Easy questions stick to the basics any rider knows; the hard tier asks about 1900 high-jump ties, vaulting's single Olympic outing and which emperor died playing polo. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something either way.
30 of 98 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which horse event was held at only one Olympics, in 1900?
The long jump
The long jump for horses was run like a human high jump, with the distance to clear growing after each success; the winner, Extra Dry, cleared 6.10 metres and the event never came back.
Q 02Which body governs international equestrian sport?
FEI
The FEI was set up in 1921 by eight nations to give horse sport a single set of international rules, and the Olympic events have been run under them since 1924.
Q 03As of 2024, which nation tops the all-time Olympic gold medal table in dressage, eventing and show jumping alike?
Germany
Germany leads all three tables, even though its riders were shut out of the 1920, 1924 and 1948 Games after the two world wars.
Q 04The 1956 Melbourne Olympic equestrian events were held in which city instead?
Stockholm
Stockholm staged the riding in June 1956, five months before the Melbourne Games opened, because Australia would not relax its six-month quarantine on incoming horses.
Q 05Where were the 2008 Beijing Olympic equestrian events staged?
Hong Kong
Hong Kong had high quarantine standards, existing racing facilities and a long tradition of horse racing.
Q 06Which member of the British royal family rode in the three-day event at the 1976 Montreal Olympics?
Princess Anne
Princess Anne rode the Queen's horse Goodwill, took a fall that left her concussed halfway round, and still remounted to finish the course.
Q 07In 1912, Olympic dressage horses also had to do what?
Jump obstacles
Jump obstacles: four fences up to 1.1 metres high and a three-metre spread, followed by an 'obedience test' in which a barrel was rolled towards the horse.
Q 08Vaulting has been an Olympic event only once, in 1920; which host nation won both of its gold medals?
Belgium
Belgium beat France and Sweden, the only other entrants, in a contest for army officers who leapt on and off cantering horses, with a saddle and without.
Q 09At the 1908 Olympics, all three teams in the polo tournament represented which country?
Great Britain
Great Britain could not lose: the entrants were two London clubs, Roehampton and Hurlingham, and a team from Ireland, and Roehampton took the gold.
Q 10The first woman to ride in Olympic eventing, in 1964, came from which wealthy American industrial family?
Du Pont
Du Pont heiress Lana duPont rode in Tokyo at the first Games to admit women to the three-day event, and came home with a silver medal as a member of the United States team.
Q 11Which British rider won individual show jumping gold at the 2016 Olympics at the age of 58?
Nick Skelton
Nick Skelton had retired in 2001 after breaking his neck in a fall, then returned to the saddle and won the title on Big Star at his seventh Olympic Games.
Q 12Which unit is traditionally used to state the height of a horse?
Hands
Hands, fixed at 4 inches each by a statute of Henry VIII, are counted from the ground to the withers, the top of the animal's shoulders.
Q 13Which Irish rider forfeited his 2004 individual show jumping gold after his horse failed a drug test?
Cian O'Connor
Cian O'Connor saw the gold pass to Brazil's Rodrigo Pessoa, although the ruling accepted that he had not set out to dope his horse; he had to wait until London 2012 for an Olympic medal, a bronze, that he could keep.
Q 21At which arena letter is there always a dressage judge?
C
C is the middle of the short end facing the entrance, so the judge there looks straight down the centre line; at the top level as many as six more sit at other markers round the arena.
Q 22What is the piaffe?
A trot performed in place
It is a calm, collected, elevated trot on the spot; the horse must never step backwards.
Q 23Which dressage movement is a very collected trot that seems to pause between strides?
Passage
Passage takes so long to teach that it was left out of the 1948 Olympic test: after the war there had been too little time to train horses to that standard.
Q 14Which show jumping contest tests jumping ability alone, with a wall that is raised round by round?
Puissance
Puissance is show jumping's high jump: the wall goes up after every round, often past two metres, and riders still level after four jump-offs share first prize.
Q 15What does the French word "dressage" most commonly translate to?
Training
Training is the literal sense: the French verb dresser means to train or drill, and the sport still judges what that schooling is meant to produce, a balanced, supple and obedient horse.
Q 16Which ancient Greek writer's work on horsemanship is a root of dressage?
Xenophon
Xenophon's On Horsemanship, from the 4th century BC, argued for the mildest possible bit and for rewarding a horse's obedience instead of forcing it, advice trainers still quote.
Q 17Which three-beat gait is faster than a horse's trot but slower than a full gallop?
The canter
The canter is a controlled, three-beat gait; dictionaries trace its name to the 'Canterbury pace', the easy speed at which pilgrims rode to the shrine there.
Q 18At which arena letter does a dressage horse enter the arena?
A
A is the gate, midway along one short end: horse and rider come in there and ride straight up the centre line, which runs through the unmarked point X in the middle of the arena.
Q 19The riders' mnemonic for the dressage arena markers A-K-E-H-C-M-B-F begins 'All King' whose 'Horses'?
Edward's
Edward's is the name in every version: the endings vary from 'Can Make Big Fences' to 'Can Manage Big Feeds', but the initials always spell out the markers in order round the arena.
Q 20Dressage judges score each movement on what scale?
0 to 10
0 to 10 is the range for every movement, from 0 for 'not executed' up to 10 for 'excellent'; the marks are then totalled into the percentage score that decides the placings.
Q 24What are the highest-level dressage tests called?
Grand Prix
Grand Prix is the level ridden at the Olympics, where three tests carrying the name, the Grand Prix, the Grand Prix Special and the Grand Prix Freestyle, settle the medals.
Q 25Which Vienna institution keeps the classical dressage tradition alive?
Spanish Riding School
The Spanish Riding School owes its name to the Spanish horses among the forebears of its white Lipizzaner stallions, the only breed it trains; the school itself goes back to the 16th century.
Q 26In show jumping, how many faults does knocking down a pole usually cost?
Four
Four faults is the price of each fallen rail, and of a splash in the water jump too; this is a sport in which the lowest score wins.
Q 27What do show jumpers call a performance with no faults at all?
A clear round
A clear round is rarely enough on its own: riders who are still level go into a jump-off over a shortened, raised course, where the fastest time without faults wins.
Q 28Which Italian cavalry officer pioneered the forward seat used by jumpers today?
Federico Caprilli
Federico Caprilli studied photographs of horses jumping without riders and concluded that a rider should fold forward with the horse; until then riders had leaned back over fences.
Q 29Which 18th-century English laws created a need for horses that could jump fences?
The Enclosure Acts
The Enclosure Acts turned open common land into hedged and fenced fields, so riders following the hounds suddenly needed horses that could jump whatever stood in the way.
Q 30Which city's horse show, first held in 1864, staged one of the earliest 'leaping' contests in 1868?
Dublin
Dublin's 1868 show, the first run solely by the Royal Dublin Society, put horses over obstacles for prizes; a London show followed with its own leaping contest a year later, and show jumping grew from there.