Equestrian events have evolved over 5000 years from when man first started training horses to perform various activities. There were some equestrian events, including chariot racing, in the ancient Olympic Games.

Dressage started over 400 years ago with the training of military horses to perform parade-ground manoeuvres. The first show jumping competitions, which followed on from hunting and steeplechasing, were held in the mid 1800s in France and Ireland. The three-day event is based on the requirements of a cavalry horse to travel long distances cross country, to negotiate obstacles and to perform military manoeuvres.

Equestrian is the only Olympic sport where man and animal are established team mates, and one of the few where men and women compete on equal terms. There are three disciplines in the equestrian events in the modern Olympics, Dressage, Jumping and Eventing (three-day event) with an individual and team event in each, making six events in total. 

Dressage - is a sort of ballet on horseback, in which the rider guides the horse to perform the intricate manoeuvres of stepping. The scoring is done by judges who evaluate how well the horse executes the moves.

Jumping - consists of negotiating a series of obstacles with the goal being not to disturb the fences and not incur any time penalties.

Eventing – includes tests in Dressage and Jumping and adds the riding of a cross-country course as a third competition (before the Jumping test). The winner is the team or combination that incurs the lost number of penalties.

The first Australian competitors in equestrian were in the three-day event of the 1956 Olympics, which were held in Stockholm because of the strict Australian quarantine requirements for horses. The first Australian medals were won in the three-day event in Rome in 1960 with Laurie Morgan and Neale Lavis winning the gold and silver medals respectively in the individual contest and then being joined by an injured Bill Roycroft to win the team event. Bronze medals in the three-day team event followed in Mexico City in 1968 and Montreal in 1976.  Barcelona in 1992 saw Matt Ryan win the individual gold medal in the three-day event and with Andrew Hoy, Gillian Rolton win the team competition. The three-day team competition was won again in Atlanta in 1996 (Wendy Schaeffer, Andrew Hoy, Phillip Dutton & Gillian Rolton) and in Sydney in 2000 (Matt Ryan, Andrew Hoy, Phillip Dutton & Stuart Tinney). Andrew Hoy also won the silver medal in the individual event in Sydney.

The Roycroft family has been prominent in Olympic equestrian. Bill Roycroft competed in five Olympics and three of his sons, Wayne, Barry and Clarke, and Wayne’s wife Vicki, are all Olympians. Bill carried the Australian Flag in the Opening Ceremony in Mexico City and Wayne did likewise in Los Angeles in 1984.

Andrew Hoy was part of a gold-medal winning three-day event team for three Olympics in succession. He has competed at six Olympics and carried the flag in the Opening Ceremony in Atlanta. He was also selected in the equestrian squad for Moscow 1980 but the sport was withdrawn from the Australian team that eventually competed in the Olympics.

Australia has not won a medal in Olympic jumping nor dressage events with the best performance being a fourth by Thomas Fahey in the grand prix jumping in Tokyo in 1964.

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