Have you heard about the 1900 Olympic Games?
The International Olympic Committee had just been formed a few years earlier, in 1894, and the first modern Olympic Games took place in Athens, Greece, in 1896.
The second installment of this then-new phenomenon was held in Paris, in 1900, in conjunction with that year’s Exposition Universelle (World’s Fair). By most accounts, these Games were more of a sideshow to the World’s Fair than the serious sporting event we think of now. But the 1900 Olympic Games are noteworthy because that was the first year that women were allowed to compete.
And that was also the first year that “Equestrianism” appeared on the schedule, even though horse sports were not included in 1904 (St. Louis) or 1908 (London). It wasn’t until the 1912 Games in Stockholm that the current Olympic horse sports — dressage, jumping, and eventing — made their debut.
The horse sports contested at the 1900 Games: jumping, high jump, long jump, a “mixed hacks and hunters” competition, and … four-in-hand driving. Three of these (the various jumping events) were recognized by the IOC, but the other two events were not.
Try as I might, I have not been able to find out much at all about the one and only time that carriage-driving appeared on the schedule at an Olympic Games, except that it happened. But I do know that Belgium’s Georges Nagelmackers won the competition.
The Slower Road 