Today, August 28, the horse riding arena of the Spasskaya Tower Festival on Red Square welcomed the Junior Trick Riding Competition for the Prize of the Spasskaya Tower Festival organized by the Festival's Directorate, the Kremlin Equestrian School and the Department of Sports of the Moscow Government.
Trick riding or jigitovka (as we say it in Russian) constitutes an essential part of Russia's equestrian traditions that used to be widely practiced both by the Russian 19th century army and later by the Red Army.
Today the competition featured two groups of 7-10 and 10-13 years of age, participants performed four different tricks with different technical difficulty chosen by contestants themselves. The higher is the difficulty, the bigger is the score.
Eight years old Anastasia Semenyova from the Kremlin Equestrian School took the prize in the younger age category, while thirteen years old Yaroslav Marilov (representative of the Legenda Equestrian Club) secured the win in the other group.
All the winners were awarded cups and received prizes from the Kremlin Equestrian School. Other contestants that were not so lucky received valuable presents from the Directorate of the Spasskaya Tower Festival. The awards ceremony was held by Boris Petrov, Director General of the Kremlin Equestrian School, Andrey Nenashev, captain of the Kremlin Equestrian School team, and Ms Anastasia Savina, Chief Judge of the competition.
After the competition the younger members of the Kremlin Equestrian School, with the youngest being just 5 years old, showed their skill of handling bladed arms. It's interesting to note that the team consists of 16 children and there are only three boys.
