Success at an international equestrian competition

Edinburgh, which is the second largest city in Scotland, is associated not only with sheep husbandry, good whisky and typical Scottish tartan, but also with one of the oldest Royal Universities in the British Isles. In the last weekend of January, the Kingsbarn Equestrian Centre hosted the annual International Equestrian Competition for students of Veterinary Medicine from all over the world, organised by R(D)SV Horse Society.

Poland was represented by a four man team of students from the Horse Riding Section of the University of Environmental and Life Sciences in Wrocław, which consisted of: Anna Kaczmarek (3rd year), Blanka Satora, Malwina Słowikowska (6th year) and Adrianna Żelech (1st year). They had to compete not only against a strong host representation from the R(D)SV – The Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, but also against students from all over the world, including among others from the USA, Canada, Norway, Singapore and the British Isles.

The competition was divided into two parts, dressage and show jumping. The participants had to use horses they had not known, which were provided by the organisers and randomly drawn for each participant.

“Each team member had two horses at his/her disposal, and they had only 10 minutes to get familiar with the horse before they started. Before the jumping competition, everyone was allowed to make three training jumps in a training field”, said Blanka Satora. “It was also the source of a lot of emotions and laughter because there were a few minor accidents and unexpected horse behaviour”, she added.

The experience of our representatives helped them significantly and they were able to handle horses with very different temperaments. The referees focused mostly on the riding style, taking into account the fact that the riders were not familiar with the horses. Polish team members took second place overall in the competition, just behind the local team. Another big success for our university was taking second and third place in the dressage competition, by Malwina Słowikowska and Adrianna Żelech respectively. It was an example of another success of Wrocław’s Horse Riding Section in the international arena.