History and ethics

The history of showjumping started 140 years ago with the first Horse Show of the Royal Dublin Society, year 1864. Two jumping competions were held to test the ability of horses for fox hunting.
Later many new tournaments was founded like Concours Central, Paris (1866), National Horse Show in New York and Madison Square Garden (1883). In the beginning of the jumping sport the roule of the Course Designer was very poor.
As a example in Aachen CSIO, 1937, was 39 Judges and Members of the Appeal Committe mostly high ranked military and/or nobility and only one man low ranked military responsible for the obstacles.
The image and function of the Course Designer changed through the history, mostly due to, great personalities like General Lombardi (Italy), Col. Brinkmann (Germany), Pamela Carruthers (Great Britain) and Dr.h.c. Bertalan de Nemethy (USA)
Today the demand of the Course designer is very high and you will need a lot enthusiasm, passion, patience and long time of schooling as succesful rider in jumping competions, practical experience of many small Shows, experience as trainer, assistance to experienced Course Designers, but also to participate on many seminars held by National Federations , FEI. or the Aachen School of Course Design founded 2004 by the most famous and leading International Course Designers Arno Gego, Olaf Petersen and Leopoldo Palacius.

Olympic Games, Berlin 1936

Olympic games, Sydney 2000,
Course Designer: Leopoldo Palacios

Good course designing, needs well educated, experienced, independent, honest, responsible and diplomatic personalitys based on good horsemanship. The course designer must love his sport and use his high knowledge, to promote the jumping sport world a wide. His knowledge about the history of jumping should help him to keep the sport close to the roots of our sport, (nature-based sport and ecology ) It is importand to create an exciting sport of fighting the best against each other in an atmosphere of excellance with interesting and rhytmical lines which encourage free forward movement of the horse.
The obstacles should be aesthetically and nice looking. Course designers should look for balancing the different kinds of test, such as skill of horse and rider, galloping performance, jumping ability and condition in mean time asking for solvable tests, having in mind the welfare of the horse.
The sponsors logos, which presence in a Arena should be decent, limited, sympathetic, variable and in best relation to other obstacles and decoration, avoiding to make comercials of all obstacles. The sponsor name or logo should be sympathetic, variable and fit together with the overall appearence of the tournament. Sponsoring is very important but on a fair basis of giving and taking and marketing may never have influence on sport or rule the sport.