In Europe the bigest hippodrome is in Vincennes in France and in Moscow.


Showjumping
Showjumping as a sport has not old history. The first official jumping competition was in 1865 in England. The now-using rules were compiled after the 2nd world war. The rider has to wear red, dark-blue or black riding jacket, white jodhpurs, black highboots and black hard hat.
The horse with the rider is to overleap some amount of obstacles in the time limit and without throwing some obstacle down. The aim of the rider is to pass it clearly and in the shortest possible time.
The track consists of various kinds of unfixed obstacles, some of them are united into two- or three-jumps, sometimes there´s a water trench. Showjumping fences consist of wooden stands, that support planks or poles.
The referees penalise competitors for errors such as knocking down the obstacle (4 penalty points), refusing jump, deviating from the course, disobedience (3rd means disqualification) fall of the horse or rider (8pp) and crossing the time (disqualification).


Dressure
It´s a collection of exercises which are to show if the horse is in his top physical ability obedient and subjected to its rider. The required exercises are short, medium and accelerated step, gallop and trot, shrinking, changes of the modes, cross-step, traversal way, piurette, piaf.
Dressure exercises of th lower level are done in the dressur rectangular of the size 40x20m. interanational competitions and competitions of the middle level are done in the rectangular of the size 60x20m. It´s very often that there´s music during the competition which makes the sport artistic.
The father of classic riding was the French Francois R. de la Guérinière whose exercise principals have been used by two most famous horse-riding institutions: The Military riding school in Saumure and Spanish high school in Vienna.


Military
The three-days general capability competition was realized first time in the olympic games in Stockholm in 1912 and it was designed for soldiers. It´s the hardest competition which required from the horse highest efficiency, speed, endurance, courage and mainly ability to overcome all obstacles.
The 1st day the dressure part takes place. The 2nd day the competitions are aimed at speed and endurance in cross-country trial. The lenght of the track is 25 km. This phase consists of flat part, motorway and steeplechase which is 3,2 km long and it has 32 obstacles. The whole track means for rider nad horse 1 hour and half hour of unbelievable hard work.