What do you need to start vaulting?
Download Start Vaulting doc.

Do vaulters wear hats?
The accepted rules of the discipline of vaulting does not require the wearing of hard hats indeed hats of any kind are not allowed in competition. When vaulters first start they may wear hats but as they progress they can become a hinderance and even a danger to themselves and other vaulters..

What about safety in the sport it looks very challenging?
The safety of the sport depends on the careful selection along with excellent training of the horses and the structured, incremental development of the exercises the vaulters perform. Every vaulter must spend time working on the ground and the static horse to develop their skills before going on to the horse. Vaulting is always done in a controlled environment and under constant supervision of the lunger who has control of the horse. The safety of the group relies on the total trust between lunger and horse combined with the discipline and commitment of the vaulters. Click Here

Are horses specially trained?
The horses that are used are specially trained first on the flat up to elementary level in dressage. The better they are at dressage the better balance the horse has. The horses also have to have a fittening programme similar to an event horse. Click Here

Do the horses do anything else apart from vaulting?
All the Equibuddy horses have a varied weekly work schedule including competitions in other disciplines and hunting too. as you will be able to see by the pictures on the website and their weekly programme on the horses page.

Who can vault?
Anyone can vault as the challenge offered can be adjusted to each individual. The clubs do not usually start members under school age. Teams usually have a wide age range and members of both sexes. Therapy sessions maybe conducted in very small groups and include very young clients in short one to one individual sessions.

Why do vaulters warm-up before they get onto the horse?
Vaulters have to stretch and warm up their muscles before they begin to vault in line with all other sports activities, in order to reduce the risk of strains and injury. At the start of every session the horse has a warm up session too, this includes re-introduction to vaulting with the vaulters running alongside to confirm the trust and harmony .

Is vaulting gymnastics or riding?
Vaulting is a mixture of both gymnastics and riding. Not all vaulters ride recreationally. Not all vaulters go to the gym either but of course they improve faster if they do!

Do you have to be fit to be able to vault?
Anyone can have a go! But you have to have a reasonable level of fitness to be able to vault in a full club session, although you get fitter as you go along. The work done is always tailored to suit each individual. The coaching offered in the sport is athlete centered and therefore perfect for therapy too.

How big are the horses that the vaulters use?
Mostly the horses are over 16hh but the smallest Equibuddy has trained is about 15 .1hh and the tallest horse that the Equibuddy vaulters use is 18. 2hh.

For more information on Vaulting then you can visit the websites listed below:

www.vaulting.org.uk
www.vaultingclub.com