Equestrian at the 2004 Summer Olympics

Equestrian at the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad
Venue	Markopoulo Olympic Equestrian Centre
Dates	16 – 27 August 2004
← 2000 2008 →

The events of the Equestrian at the 2004 Summer Olympics featured three equestrian disciplines: dressage, eventing and jumping. All three disciplines are further divided into individual and team contests for a total of six events.

The Markopoulo Olympic Equestrian Centre, on the outskirts of Markopoulo in the Attica region of Greece, hosted the dressage and jumping events while the eventing took place in the nearby Eventing Park.

The dressage competition had 52 individual riders participate from 18 countries. 10 teams of 4 riders were fielded from Austria, Canada, Denmark, Spain, Britain, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, the United States, and Switzerland. 2 riders were sent from Australia, France, Greece, and Russia as individuals. 1 rider was sent from Belarus, Colombia, Ireland, and New Zealand as an individual.

The eventing competition had 14 teams fielded from France, Great Britain, United States, Germany, New Zealand, Australia, Belgium, Ireland, Sweden, Italy, Brazil, Canada, Austria, and Poland.

The show jumping competition had 77 individual riders participate from 27 countries. 16 teams of 4 riders were fielded from Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland, Sweden, and the United States. Britain and Saudi Arabia sent 2 riders to compete individually. Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Puerto Rico, and Russia sent one rider as an individual.

Equestrian events took place over 14 days, from 14 August to 27 August. Eventing was held on the first five days, while the other two disciplines overlapped for most of the rest of the schedule.

The equestrian events were marred by medal controversies in both the show jumping and the eventing competitions, which resulted in a shuffling of the medals and changing of the overall placings.

The first controversy occurred in the stadium jumping phase of the eventing competition, after German rider Bettina Hoy accidentally crossed the start flags twice. She initially crossed it in her warm-up circle, and continued around the course unaware, as the clock was restarted for her second pass around. The ground jury realized the mistake of restarting the clock, and gave Hoy the 14 time penalties she would have received had her time started with the first pass between the start flags. This dropped both Hoy and her German team, who were poised for individual and team gold respectively, down in the standings, with the German team finishing just out of the medals in fourth place, and Hoy completing the individual competition in ninth.