The Armour Archive

Can someone just run down an overview of what they do, what is needed to participate, and what a participant needs to know. Just so I don't get the usual snark I already have the horses and tack.

Thanks

I would start by talking with your local equesterian martial. If I rember right there is vacination requirment for the horse, autherization comes with time and pratice for both the horse and rider often the animals need time to ajust to the barding and other distractions found in the list.
The SCA rules hosted by the AEthelmearc Equestrian page
http://ae-eq.endlesshills.net/equestrian_handbook

To make things intresting my kingdome has several addendums to the socity rules most are common sense,,a deeper explination of the rules, and notes on how the socity rules are interperited by the Kingdome equestrian martial. Your kingdome probibly has it's own set of additional rules in addition to the SCA socity rules. It can be more intresting when you start partisipating in other kingdom or interkingdom events.

As you well know horses are expencive and space requirments to equestrian activitys can be limited depending on the region traveling to equestrian events also poses a bit of a concern expecialy if your horse is not use to traveling, it might be a good idea to allow for extra time or even boarding in a local stable the night before.

I can speak largely only about how it's done in An Tir, but I suspect the SCA equestrian experience is pretty similar from one kingdom to another. As has been suggested, contact your area's equestrian marshal.

There are multiple levels of equestrian authorization: junior and senior ground crew, general riding, medieval gaming, mounted combat, and jousting. One obvious but important thing I might mention is that it's a good idea to be aware that at an SCA event, you are likely to have a far greater number of folks around with minimal experience around horses than at a "regular" equestrian event. Kingdoms vary in the degree of segregation of horse activities from everything else, but you will encounter people who are completely clueless about how to behave around horses. In particular, watch for unleashed dogs...

Medieval gaming will consist on a number of elements, often divided up between a palfrey competition (think: medieval dressage...sort of), a combat course with elements for sword and lance, and a hunting course for bow, spear, and/or javelin. Sometimes it's all mashed up. How the courses are organized varies a lot, which keeps things interesting. Combat elements might include rows of heads (assumed to be mannekin heads, but if there are Tuchux in your area, who knows?), rings to take with the lance, quintain, and so forth.

Mounted combat is exactly what it sounds like: hand weapon combat. The armor standard is lighter than SCA heavy, largely because the weapon standard is lighter, as well (thinner rattan, with some foam padding), for the horses' safety. Targeting is waist up only, again for the safety of the horses. As in historical tournament combat, the horse is obviously not a target. In An Tir, anyway, a lighter gauge helm is permitted than for heavy foot combat, and other standards are lighter, as well. Armor standards are something you'll need to check out locally, though.

Jousting, even with foam or balsa tips, will require stouter armor (at least imo...again, check the local standards, and err on the side of safety). I'd strongly suggest a helm with historical eye openings (that is, smaller than you'd see in an SCA-oriented combat helm, and obviously bar grilles are a bad idea!), even with foam tips. Things don't alway go as planned, and it's not 100% guaranteed only the tip is going to hit you. While the target in a joust of peace is almost always going to e the shield, you can (and will) get hit elsewhere. Wear the best armor you can afford.

Just a capsule overview (and incomplete), but I hope it helps...

In the Middle Kingdom don't tell them if you have done outside EQ activity. Some of the EQ people in the middle were cool, but a large chunk of them was cliquish, childish, and the moment they found out someone rode something other than just games and wore armor on their horse and *gasp* had done jousting they treated me like I was a red hot pan ready to be inserted in their anus.

Otherwise...good luck! I had to go outside the SCA to find horse activities.

Leo, I don't think your experience with the closed mindedness of Middle Kingdom equestrian has been true for at least the last 3-4 years. We have had several new authorizations of people from other riding disciplines and I've not see any of them treated the way you were years ago.