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The Most Popular Mounted Games Races Explained
There are far more races in the books than any team rides in a single day. Organisers pick a selection for each show, mixing fast crowd-pleasers with fiddly tests of nerve. Once you know the handful below you will be able to follow almost any competition from the rail. New riders should pair this with our beginner's guide to mounted games for the bigger picture.
Bending
The race everyone learns first. Riders gallop up a line of five poles, weave through them, turn at the top and weave back to hand over to the next rider. It sounds easy. It is not. The trick is the turn at the top, where good riders lose almost no ground, and keeping the pony bent and balanced through the poles rather than running flat past them. Bending is the backbone of the whole sport, which is why we wrote a separate piece on training your pony for bending.
The flag race
Riders carry a flag down the arena, post it into a cone, gallop on, collect a second flag from another cone and bring it back. Drop a flag and you have to go back for it, which is where races are won and lost. It rewards a steady hand and a pony that will stand square next to a cone for the split second you need.
The sock race
A great leveller and a favourite with younger riders. A weighted sock has to be carried down, dropped accurately into a bucket and the next sock collected from the floor. Throw too hard and it bounces out. Throw too soft and you are short. The race tends to reward calm over speed, and you will see fast teams come unstuck by rushing the bucket.
The mug shuffle
Riders move mugs from pole to pole down a line, picking up and setting down on the move. It is all about a soft, accurate hand and a pony that holds a straight line. Knock a mug off and you stop to replace it. Spectators love watching a confident rider place each mug without breaking pace.
Pick-up and put-down races
A whole family of races asks riders to lean down and lift something off the ground at canter, or to step down, grab it and vault back on. These are where a smaller pony and good vaulting technique pay off most obviously. The reach itself looks dramatic but the real skill is keeping the pony moving in a straight line while you are hanging off its side.
Why the variety matters
No single rider is brilliant at everything, and that is the point. A team needs a fearless gallop-and-grab rider, a calm hand for the placing races and someone reliable on the handovers. Building a team around those different strengths is half the fun of the sport. If you want to see how it all comes together on the day, read our guide to how a competition day works.