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[Riders with Disabilities]

Horses Arrive & Riders Draw

It was a wonderful sight when 100 horses, bays and chesnuts, mounted by volunteers in yellow t-shirts, crossed the outdoor area in the early morning sun Monday morning to enter the show arena of Vilhelmsborg to participate in the horse presentation, preceding the draw.

The Danish Sports Organization for the Disabled has borrowed 100 horses for the Championships from private Danish horseowners for the 84 disabled riders riding on pool- horses.  36 participants will be riding on their own horses.
The 120 riders come from 28 different countries and they started arriving Saturday the 23^rd.

The horses were allotted to the riders in a draw - a vital and thrilling moment for the riders even though they have the possibility of returning the horse to the pool and go for another horse in the second draw from the remaining pool of horses.
The Danish  national coach Peter Kobbernagel says that there is an element of luck in the draw - the rider getting a suitable horse or even being so lucky to get his or her desired horse, has an advantage in the competitions.
- But first and foremost the skilled rider is a rider with strong nerves, flexibility and technical capacity, says Peter Kobbernagel.
- A flexibele rider who is able to adapt to many different horses, has an advantage participating in international competitions for the disabled, where the majority of the riders participate on borrowed horses and this is also the only way to participate in the Paralympics.

Classifications
There are separate competitions for the riders on pool-horses and those on their own horses.
The riders are furthermore divided into four grades (classes) depending on their disability.

Grade 1 riders are the most severely disabled and grade 4 are the riders whith a more minor disability. Within each grade the riders compete against one another in spite of the fact that they have different types of disabilities. So there will be blind riders, riders with different forms of physical disabilities and mentally deficient riders competing against each other at these World Championships.

The idea with classification, is to place the riders, who previously have not been classified internationally, into one of the four grades that all the competitions for disabled riding are divided into.

39 riders from the 120 participating riders have been through this process. The result was that three riders, a Dane, an American and a rider from Spain were excluded from the competitions, due to the fact that their disability objectively not was to be seen, such as chronic but varying pain after a whiplash.

The Spanish rider, Javier Medrano, who is almost totally blind, was later allowed back in the competitions after another test and an agreement that he rides with black glasses.

Furthermore three riders have been moved to another grade, than they previously have been participating in.

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