Equestrian at the 1964 Summer Olympics

The Equestrian Events at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo included Show Jumping, Dressage and Eventing. All three disciplines had both individual and team competitions. The competitions were held from October 16, 1964, to October 24, 1964. These events took place at Karuizawa, which would become the first city to host Summer and Winter Olympic event when it hosted the curling events for the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano.

This was the second time the Olympics were held in a city that required most of the horses to travel short distances (the first being the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles). Unlike the 1932 Games, however, there was a high participation rate due to the better economic conditions as well as the ability to fly the Olympic mounts to Japan. However, horses that could not be controlled had to be destroyed. This included the US eventer Markham, who panicked during departure from Newark, and an Argentinian horse had to be destroyed while flying home. Additionally, a Chilian horse died of a heart attack while flying to Tokyo. Overall there were 116 entries from 21 countries, including 13 women, with 4 nations fielding teams in all three disciplines: Japan, Germany, the USSR, and the USA. The youngest participant was Christilot Hanson-Boylen from Canada at 17 years old, while the oldest rider was the Irish Harry Freeman-Jackson at 53 years old.

Forty-six riders from seventeen nations contested the Shunzo Kido-designed course, which was 780 meters in length with 14 obstacles and 17 efforts. The hardest question was towards the end of the course. The penultimate obstacle was a 5 meter wide water, followed by a left turn to an impressively large oxer. Only 6 riders cleared the water in both rounds, and only 3 cleared the final oxer without faults both times. Adding to the difficulty was the fact that the ground was very deep due to heavy rain leading up to the event. Pierre Jonquères d’Oriola became the first show jumper to win two individual gold medals (having won in 1952 with his mount Ali Baba).

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