ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 5, 1997 TAG: 9701060043
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: THAXTON
SOURCE: JOANNE POINDEXTER STAFF WRITER
``GYMNASTICS ON HORSEBACK" is perhaps the best definition of vaulting, a sport with ancient origins that came to the United States in the '60s. In Bedford County, a teacher and her pupils are among Virginia's small contingent of vaulters.
Sylvester, a rather shy 15-year-old gelding, patiently paced around the riding ring Friday as two teen-age girls performed acrobatics on his back.
The girls lay flat on the horse for a moment; several moves later, they both stood. The gymnastics didn't bother Sylvester, but the steady clicking of a camera did.
Before they knew it, the horse tucked his hind legs in a squat and Emily Rose Wright and Emily Rae Walter went tumbling.
The horse got a quick reprimand from trainer Betsey Hayes, who had been leading him around the ring, and the girls got a lesson on when to hang on to a horse and when to let go.
That's one of many lessons Hayes has taught the girls about vaulting - the official name for horseback gymnastics.
Hayes started teaching vaulting about a year ago. Emily Rae, 14, and Emily Rose, 13, are two of her students.
Hayes, who started riding 18 years ago when she was 8, and her students, ranging in ages from 6 to 16, have held demonstrations for elementary pupils and participated in clinics and horse shows.
Emily Rose and Emily Rae are a duo. With help from Hayes, they make up many of the moves they perform.
Gymnastics on horseback dates back to the Roman times, when soldiers were trained to vault off a horse to pick up weapons, Hayes said. The soldiers also learned to ride on the side of a horse, either hanging or lying, so they were smaller targets for their enemies.
Competition in this area, she says, is scarce, but there are active groups in Blacksburg and Great Falls.
Vaulting, as a competitive sport, was bought to the United States in the 1960s from Germany. The sport, promoted by the American Vaulting Association, is popular in California, where the first U.S. team was formed.
Anybody can learn horseback gymnastics, said Hayes, who majored in equestrian studies and business administration at Averett College. "It's a safer sport than riding."
The horse, controlled by a trainer, moves in a circle at the end of a 25-foot longe line as riders mount, exercise and dismount. Instead of a saddle, a vaulting surcingle with two large handles and two leather foot loops is used.
Horseback gymnastics is a warm-weather sport, and competition includes team and individual events that have compulsory and freestyle routines set to music.
Emily Rose and Emily Rae competed in Blacksburg in late October, and "did real well for the first time out," bragged Aggie Wright, Emily Rose's mom. They placed first in one event and finished high in several others.
Emily Rose has been interested in horseback gymnastics since attending a riding camp about six years ago, said her father, Tim Wright.
The Wrights own the farm where the girls are learning, and Emily Rae boards her horse there. Both girls started riding horses when they were 7 and have taken dance.
Emily Rose took regular gymnastics one day but quit after she had to fall backward into a pit, said her mom.
Emily Rae took 10 years of gymnastics before injuring her elbow, said her mother, Vicki Walter.
Both girls say horseback gymnastics is fun and they haven't suffered any serious injuries.
The ideal horse for vaulting is "something very kind, patient and big-bodied, with good temperament," Hayes said.
Her teams have used several horses, and she's looking for one now. Vaulters perfect their routines on a stationary horse - one and a half 55-gallon barrels welded and covered with carpet scraps and sitting on iron legs - before getting on a horse.
"There are a lot of things you can do on the barrel that you can't do on a horse," Hayes said, adding that the competition includes the stationary horse.
The girls' moms said vaulting horses sometimes have to be retrained. Horses are taught to stand still when someone is mounting, but in vaulting the horses are never supposed to be still.
Also, they explained, a horse's normal response to pressure on its side is to keep moving. When vaulters are standing on the horse's back, the animal has a tendency to stop.
"It's a strange thing. No matter how well you train a horse, you never know what it's going to do," Vicki Walter said.
But her husband, Scott, the girls' most ardent cheerleader, is confident of Hayes' training and the teen-agers' skills.
And he said the trainer also has a special way with horses.
"When she calls the horses from the pastures, it's like music," Scott Walter said.
LENGTH: Long : 101 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ROGER HART STAFF. 1. Betsey Hayes (left) works on aby CNBvaulting routine with Emily Rae Walter on a stationary horse - one
and a half 55-gallon barrels welded together, covered with carpet
scraps and sitting on iron legs. Vaulters perfect their routines on
a stationary horse before trying them on real ones. 2. Emily Rae
Walter (top) and Emily Rose Wright practice their freestyle pas de
deux vaulting routines on Sylvester, a 15-year-old appaloosa.
color.