The Student Room Group

Tokyo 2020 Paralympics: Equestrian





It's the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics!
~ This is the Equestrian thread ~




The equestrian sport chosen for the Paralympics is dressage, and there are three medal events - team, individual, and individual freestyle, with each event also have medals for each grade. The team event includes riders from a range of grades within every team. In paradressage, the grading system also dictates the difficulty of movements allowed to be performed, although riders often push the boundaries to improve their difficulty marks!

The governing body for equestrian sports (the FEI) has made a useful guide for how the competition plays out here, including how classification works. The Paralympics have their own slightly more detailed explanation here

The full schedule can be found here, with competing kicking off this Thursday!

(edited 3 years ago)
Reply 1
~ Individual dressage is complete! ~


It's been a hectic first two days for Paralympic dressage, and there have been some great results for Team GB. The favourite for gold in grade 2 and potentially the best known GB athlete in this discipline, Lee Pearson, perfectly lived up to expectations and brought home his individual gold! Here are the full results:

Grade I

1. USA's Roxanne Trunnell and Dolton - 81.464%
2. Latvia's Rihards Snikus and King of the Dance - 80.179%
3. Italy's Sara Morganti and Royal Delight - 76.964%

Grade II
1. Great Britain's Lee Pearson and Breezer - 76.265%
2. Austria's Pepo Puch and Sailor's Blue - 73.441%
3. Great Britain's Georgia Wilson and Sakura - 72.765%

Grade III
1. Denmark's Tobias Thorning Jorgensen and Jolene Hill - 78.971%
2. Great Britain's Natasha Baker and Keystone Dawn Chorus - 76.265%
3. The Netherland's Rixt van der Horst and Findsley - 75.765%

Grade IV
1. The Netherland's Sanne Voets and Demantur - 76.585%
2. Brazil's Rodolpho Riskalla and Don Henrico - 74.659%
3. Belgium's Manon Claeys and San Dior 2 - 72.853%

Grade V
1. Belgium's Michele George and Best of 8 - 76.524%
2. Great Britain's Sophie Wells and Don Cara .M - 74.405%
3. The Netherland's Frank Hosmar and Alphaville - 73.405%


Paralympic dressage continues tomorrow with the team dressage to music for grades 1-3 :smile:
(edited 3 years ago)
Reply 2
~ Team dressage is complete! ~


Another day of dressage and another day of incredible performances. Team GB were one of the favourites for gold and, despite some hiccups in the warm-up and in the tests, they certainly got the gold they deserved. The music selection was also brilliant this year! Just as a reminder, in the team event all of the team members' marks get added together, rather than working on a percentage basis like in the individual. Here are the results:

Team dressage to music
1. Great Britain - 229.905
2. The Netherlands - 229.249
3. USA - 224.352
4. Denmark - 224.324
5. Belgium - 223.087
(edited 3 years ago)
Reply 3
~ Individual freestyle is complete! ~


Apologies for the late post, but yesterday marked the last day of dressage at the Paralympics and what a competition it has been! There has been some simply amazing shows of horsemanship, pure talent, and camaraderie along the way, and the quality of dressage has been exceptional. It was another great day for team GB, and Belgium and The Netherlands also shone through as some of the best in the competition. Here are the results:

Grade I
1. USA's Roxanne Trunnell and Dolton - 86.927%
2. Latvia's Rihards Snikus and King of the Dance - 82.087%
3. Italy's Sara Morganti and Royal Delight - 81.100%

Grade II
1. Great Britain's Lee Pearson and Breezer - 82.447%
2. Austria's Pepo Puch and Sailor's Blue - 81.007%
3. Great Britain's Georgia Wilson and Sakura - 76.754%

Grade III
1. Denmark's Tobias Thorning Jorgensen and Jolene Hill - 84.347%
2. Great Britain's Natasha Baker and Keystone Dawn Chorus - 77.614%
3. Norway's Ann Cathrin Lubbe and La Costa Majlund - 76.447%

Grade IV
1. The Netherland's Sanne Voets and Demantur - 82.085%
2. Sweden's Louise Etzner Jakobsson and Goldstrike B.J. - 75.935%
3. Belgium's Manon Claeys and San Dior 2 - 75.680%

Grade V
1. Belgium's Michele George and Best of 8 - 80.590%
2. The Netherland's Frank Hosmar and Alphaville - 80.240%
3. Germany's Regine Mispelkamp and Highlander Delight's - 76.820%
Reply 4
~ The Paralympic Equestrian Event is Over ~


Thank you to everyone who followed along with this thread throughout the games, or interacted with my summer olympics equestrian thread earlier in the year. It's been a pleasure getting to know more about the paralympic side of the sport in particular, and has highlighted how the sport truly is for everyone!

If you are disabled yourself and you're interested in trying out horse riding, the Riding for the Disabled Association is a superb charity which runs riding lessons for disabled people all across the country. You can find your local RDA-approved riding centre here. Do check out their social media to see exactly what they do, and if you're in a position to be able to help out, consider donating here.

If you are able-bodied and you're interested in riding, see the resources linked in my summer olympics thread here