The following forms of competition are recognized worldwide and are a part of the equestrian events at the Olympic Games :

• Dressage ("training" in French ) involves the progressive training of the horse to a high level of impulsion, collection, and obedience. Competitive dressage has the goal of showing the horse carrying out, on request, the natural movements that it performs without thinking while running loose. One dressage master has defined it as "returning the freedom of the horse while carrying the rider."
• Show jumping comprises a timed event judged on the ability of the horse and rider to jump over a series of obstacles, in a given order and with the fewest refusals or knockdowns of portions of the obstacles. At the Grand Prix level fences may reach a height of as much as 6 feet. Puissance classes involve the largest fences of all, sometimes exceeding 7 feet.
• Eventing , also called combined training, horse trials, "three-day event," "the Military," or "the complete test," puts together the obedience of dressage with the athletic ability of show jumping, the fitness demands of an endurance phase (also known as "roads and tracks") and the "cross-country" jumping phase. In the last-named, the horses jump over fixed obstacles, unlike show jumping, where the majority of the obstacles will fall down or apart if hit by the horse. In British Eventing, there was also the 'Steeple Chase' Phase, which is now excluded from most major competitions to bring them in line with the Olympic standard.

New events added to the Olympic disciplines in recent years include reining , equestrian vaulting , and paralympic competition. Endurance riding has also been recognized internationally by the FEI, though it is not yet an Olympic competition per se.

The Ice Age featured a number of subspecies of Equus ferus, a controversial term used to describe the wild protype of edquus caballus, which were hunted for meat on the tundra and steppes by early modern men. [ citation needed ] Numerous kill sites exist and many cave paintings in Europe tell us what they looked like. The main problem for students of horse domestication is many early subspecies were apparently hunted out by humans, particularly in North America , where the horse became completely extinct . [ citation needed ]

There is a theory that there were four basic "proto" horses that developed with adaptations to their environment prior to domestication. There are competing theories, some arguing that the prototypes were separate species, others suggesting that the prototypes were physically different manifestations of the same species. Other theories hold that there was only one wild species was domesticated and all different body types were entirely a result of selective breeding. [1]

Either way, the most common theories of multiple wild subspecies from which other types are thought to have developed suggests the following base prototypes:

• The "Warmblood subspecies" or "Forest Horse" ( Equus ferus silvaticus , also called the Diluvial Horse), thought to have evolved into Equus ferus germanicus , and which may have contributed to the development of the warmblood horses of northern Europe , as well as older "heavy horses" such as the Ardennais .
• The "Draft" subspecies, a small, sturdy, heavyset animal with a heavy hair coat, arising in northern Europe, adapted to cold, damp climates, somewhat resembling today's draft horse and even the Shetland pony
• The "Oriental" subspecies, a taller, slim, refined and agile animal arising in western Asia , adapted to hot, dry climates, thought to be the progenitor of the modern Arabian horse and Akhal-Teke
• The "Tarpan subspecies," dun-colored, sturdy animal, the size of a large pony, adapted to the cold, dry climates of northern Asia, the predecessor to the Tarpan and Przewalski's Horse as well as the domesticated Mongolian horse .

Only two truly "wild" groups survived, Przewalski's horse and the Tarpan . The Tarpan became extinct in the 19th century and Przewalski's is endangered and until recently was considered extinct in the wild. Although researchers such as Gimbutas theorized that the horses of the Eneolithic were Przewalski's, more recent genetic studies indicate that Przewalski's horse is not an ancestor to modern domesticated horses. Other subspecies of Equus ferus not yet known to modern science may have existed. Scholars refer to these unknown animals as "caballine", meaning that they are not Equus caballus , but are ancestral to it.

Even though horse domestication was widespread in a short period of time, it is still possible that domestication began with a single culture, which passed on techniques and breeding stock. The earliest domestication is most likely to have occurred in the 8000 BC - 5000 BC window. It is possible that the two "wild" subspecies remained when all other groups of "wild" horses died out because all others had been, perhaps, more suitable for taming by humans and the selective breeding that gave rise to the modern domestic horse. [ citation needed ]

How could those horses possibly have survived in Europe after 8000 BC, the approximate date of their extinction in the Americas? The most probable answer is that humans, having hunted out the feral herds, kept horses as livestock. If that is true, one might speak of "domestic horses" dating from 8000 BC. Scholars are currently looking for convincing evidence for this theory. [2]

Recent genetic studies by a team headed by C. Vila, using the DNA of frozen fossil horse feet found in the Alaskan permafrost, dating from 28,000 to 12,000 BP, identified 77 mares who were ancestral to today's Equus caballus , from different times and places. Vila concluded that horses were widely domesticated over Eurasia and that the horse taming technology passed between different cultures.