Equestrian

Equestrianism is popular sport with many of the universities’ students riding at exceptionally high levels, competing both for the university and their nation. There are opportunities at the universities to take part in both competitive and non-competitive riding and you don’t need your own horse as clubs meet at local stables. For the non-competitive segment there are weekly lessons and rides organised by each individual university as well as activities such as beach rides and socials.

The competitive equestrian competitions are run by BUSA and SUS. The BUSA competitions take place from November to February with the regionals in March and the finals in April. BUSA has two leagues the Trophy league which only one team from each university can enter and the shield league has been developed for the B and C teams from each university. Scottish universities have a good record of success in the BUSA competitions with Edinburgh universities C team winning the Shield Finals last year.

Scottish Universities Sport organises an annual competition for a team of 3 riders from each university within Scotland. The competition requires no qualification to take part and consists of a combination of dressage and show jumping. The two disciplines are performed on horses provided, the aim of this is to test solely the riders’ capability, by seeing what the rider is able to achieve on the horse in a very short period of time. The dressage involves all 3 riders performing the test in succession in the same arena at the same time; all 3 riders are judged separately by different judges. The show jumping is at a height of 3ft3, although this is dependant on the horses’ capabilities. The SUS competition takes place in the middle of May, this time of year is chosen as all of the BUSA leagues, regionals and nationals have taken place before then.

SUS are hopefully looking to develop their involvement further with the idea of arranging more friendly and competitive events between the universities.