**The horse – both a symbol of manliness and a little girl’s dream. A brush drawing by Simon Volmar, circa 1830.** Swiss National Museum

Horses for courses: a symbol of masculinity or a girl’s best friend?

Ponies as the silky-smooth projection of feminine sensitivity; riding as a girl’s pink, heart-shaped dream. This cultural image, although common today, only emerged around the mid-20th century.

Noemi Steuerwald

Noemi Steuerwald is a historian and a specialist in the cultural history of equestrian sports in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Riding and equestrian sports were an exclusively male domain until after the Second World War. The mounted cavalry bore arms in service of their country. Men also earned their living through horses, for example in agriculture, the postal service, forestry or haulage. Over field and road, hauliers, farmers and carriage drivers were a familiar sight, whether at the reins of their horse-drawn vehicles or operating horse-drawn equipment. In art and literature, conquerors and rulers were always depicted riding their galloping thoroughbreds imperiously throughout culture: from as far back as Alexander the Great with his horse Bucephalus to Napoleon I, immortalised in paintings on his stallion Marengo. In a nutshell, equestrian pursuits were seen for centuries as a serious and purposeful activity for men.

Napoleon on his horse Marengo. Painting by Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, 1862. — **Napoleon on his horse u003cemu003eMarengou003c/emu003e. Painting by Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, 1862.** Wikimedia

When riding began to evolve from an everyday necessity to an exclusive sporting and leisure activity in the early 20th century, it initially remained an exclusively male domain. Whether for recreation or in competition, the riders were always men, particularly in Switzerland. That was due to the military influence on competitive equestrian sport. In contrast to many other countries, the Swiss cavalry was made up of conscripts doing military service as opposed to full-time soldiers. On completing their service, the members of this troop, the cavalrymen, could buy their horses from the state, usually at a good price. This appealed especially to those who worked in agriculture as they could put the horses to work on their farms.

However, it also placed the onus on the military to find ways of inducing their cavalrymen to hone their riding skills to the required standard. In the event of war, the Swiss army wanted robust riders with horses that were fit for purpose and not poorly trained farmers with their plough horses. Hence the introduction of sporting tournaments. The army thus became the sole “backer of equestrian sports”, to quote the 1924 publication ‘Reiten und Fahren: ein Schweizer Handbuch’.

**Horses played a big part in the army until the mid-20th century. A picture from the 1930s.** historic admin

The military was also closely associated with international elite sport. At the 1936 Olympic equestrian events in Berlin, there were only 2 civilians among 133 participants. Riding was thus not just a male preserve, it was also an almost exclusively military affair. This was evidenced by the public pomp at tournaments. Annemarie Schwarzenbach, writer, photographer and daughter of an ambitious competitive female rider, described the usual ceremony thus “military music, […] national anthems, flags, marching teams” and “stiffly saluting” officers at the awards ceremonies.

**The Swiss show jumping team in Lucerne in 1956.** FEI-Archiv Lausanne

Although women had also played an active role in equestrian sports with considerable success before the Second World War, they were still a small and dwindling minority. Consider the following: female participation in the famous ‘Grosser Preis von Aachen’ equestrian games in the 1930s was around 3%. The 1952 Olympic Games was the first time women were included in the dressage event. The ‘feminisation’ of equestrian sport only really took hold during the 1960s. Why then? And how was it possible to reverse such an old and entrenched cultural practice within just a few decades? There were three post-war developments that greatly contributed to riding ceasing to be thought of as a product and symbol of manliness.

Firstly, horses started to feature less in traditionally male-dominated fields. In the world of work, horses were replaced increasingly by cars, trucks and tractors from the 1950s; in public life, they disappeared from the streets and fields. The armed forces in many countries also dissolved their cavalry units, causing the military to retreat from its leading position in international elite sport. These developments in turn caused a profound shift in the way people related to horses. Military manuals in the first half of the 20th century closely associated horses with traits of traditionally male behaviour. The horse was an animal that had to be controlled, subjugated and punished for disobedience, using brute force if necessary, such as a hefty jab with the spurs, sharply jerking the bit back in the horse’s mouth or a whack on the nose with a stick.

As the role of the horse during the post-war period shifted from working animal to leisure time companion, it came to be associated increasingly with traditional feminine traits. Subjugation and dominance gave way to a new ideal of trust, empathy and understanding. Instead of seeing a horse as an instrument of labour, interest grew in its emotional wellbeing, usability was supplanted by care. The nature of the relationship basically shifted from one of convenience to more of a partnership.

**From the mid-20th century, the image of the horse as a working animal began to give way to...** Swiss National Museum

**... the image of a partner for people engaging in leisure activities.** Tom Kelley Archive / Retrofile RF / Getty Images / Universal Images Group

These two processes were accompanied by a profound reinterpretation of horses in popular culture. In the early 20th century, horses were portrayed as strong, powerful animals. From the 1960s, however, a very different picture began to emerge. Wendy, My Little Pony and the Windstorm films centred on such themes as friendship, empathy, care and wellbeing. The pony book genre is a particularly good illustration of that. The first book in the famous series The Black Stallion (1941) is about a boy stranded on an island after a shipwreck with just a wild black Arab stallion for company. As they battle for survival a deep friendship evolves between them, which they seal with victory in a prestigious race following their rescue.

Walter Farley’s The Black Stallion came out in 1941. The German translation names the stallion ‘Blitz’ (lightning). — **Walter Farley’s u003cemu003eThe Black Stallionu003c/emu003e came out in 1941. The German translation names the stallion u003cemu003e‘Blitz’u003c/emu003e (lightning).** Wikimedia

A good 50 years later, the genre bears almost zero similarity to its original content. Published in 2012, the book My Secret Unicorn: The Magic Spell is about a girl who finds an old pony called Twilight. It turns out that Twilight is actually a unicorn and the girl has the ability to turn him back into one. The toy industry is especially keen to cater to this and similar fantasies popular among young girls. It sustains a conveyor belt of new creations based on the cute pink image of horse riding: the pink saddles for the Barbie horses, the cuddly toy horse from Baby Born aptly known as Cutie or the Strut Runway Magic Ponies by Toys R’Us, a particularly comical offshoot of the modern era.

Advertisement for Struts. YouTube

So, after the Second World War equestrian sport lost its masculinity, in a manner of speaking. That had a pronounced effect on the nature of riding events and tournaments. Equine sports became something that women did, a neat 180-degree turn in the narrative. The statistics, at least initially, seem to back this position. 80% of the members of the Swiss national association for equestrian sport are women. In other countries, Sweden for example, the rate is even higher. This data indicates that the cultural disassociation that started during the 1960s did more than just increase the share of women participating in equestrian sports. It also serves as a textbook example of female emancipation in and through sport. The media played a big part in that, for example when the newspaper NZZ printed an article on equestrian sport and its fight against chauvinism or German broadcaster Deutsche Welle talked about the prevailing “equality of opportunity between men and women” at sporting events.

Closer analysis, however, seems to show that the situation in equestrian sport corresponds more to what gender researchers would call a leaky pipeline. At the grassroots level, the participants are mainly women and girls. At the elite level, however, the gender split is almost reversed. Looking at the Olympic equestrian events in 2024, only 36% of participants were female. A mere 29% of the top Swiss show jumpers are women, and the top 20 places in the current showjumping world rankings do not include any women at all.

**Even today, equestrian sports are still very much dominated by men. The award ceremony for the 2023 European Championships with the Swiss winner Steve Guerdat.** Dukas

Men also predominate at an institutional level. The seven-strong board governing the national association Swiss Equestrian includes just two women. These figures show that equestrian sport has structures which systematically disadvantage women. At the same time, they show that the close connection between manliness and riding has not been consigned entirely to the past. On the one hand, we have pink ponies from Toys R’Us and other producers. On the other, we still have earnest looking men standing on the podium at international tournaments. So, depending on how you look at it, perhaps equestrian sport is still something of a male pursuit after all.

**Toy pony sales, which are in the millions, have not changed the male predominance in equestrian sports.** Keystone

Swiss Sports History

This text was produced in collaboration with Swiss Sports History, the portal for the history of sports in Switzerland. The portal focuses on education in schools and information for the media, researchers and the general public. Find out more at sportshistory.ch

More of: Modern Age 20th / 21st century Sports Swiss Sports History

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