Equestrianism relates to the riding of horses. This broad description includes both riding horses for practical purposes such as in police work or for controlling herd animals on a ranch, as well as recreational and sporting aspects such as horse riding sports, carriage driving, dressage, endurance racing, eventing, horseball, paraequestrianism, reining, show jumping, tent pegging, vaulting, and polo. Other horse riding sports include horse-racing, hunting, fox hunting, rodeo, barrel racing, pole bending, flag racing, western and hunter pleasure, western and hunt-seat equitation, trail class, showmanship, horsemanship, roping (heading and heeling), park, English pleasure, country English pleasure, saddle seat equitation, jousting, and cavalry. Often, horses are used for casual or rigorous recreational riding (also called trail riding or hacking). Recreational riders often hunt, pack, and camp using horses, mules, and donkeys. There is public access to horse trails in almost every part of the world; and many parks, ranches, and barns offer guided and independent trail riding.

In former times equestrianism was closely associated with the military: medieval knights were equestrians, as were their military successors, the cavalry. However, the horse and horseback riding have had an important part in all times and places, from the times of the Roman empire, to medieval knights, to genghis khan and his armies, to the streets of London, to the farms and frontiers of the United States, to the luxury barns and fast-paced horse show world of today.

Horse racing

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Humans have always had a desire to know which horse (or horses) could move the fastest, so horse-racing has ancient roots. Today, several categories of racing exist:

Races subject to formal gambling

Under saddle:

1. Thoroughbred flat racing; (under the aegis of the Jockey Club in the United Kingdom and the Jockey Club of North America)
2. Thoroughbred National Hunt racing or steeplechasing in the UK
3. Quarter Horse Racing--mostly in the United States, and sanctioned there by the American Quarter Horse Association.
4. Appaloosa Horse Racing
5. Arabian Horse Racing

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