Hiyoshi Riding Ground

2021/12/28

There is a riding ground along the northern slope of the Hiyoshi Campus. Since it is not visible from the campus, most students are probably unfamiliar with it. As you pass through the residential area from Yagami, you will suddenly see horses. You can also see scenes of nearby kindergarten children often peeking in. This riding ground is the main base of activities for the Athletic Association's Equestrian Club. It is also used by the School of Medicine, and students from Keio Senior High School, Keio Girls' Senior High School, and Chutobu Junior High School practice together with the university club members. The Equestrian Club is a long-standing club, founded in 1920 and celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2020. When the club was first established, they practiced by borrowing military horses from the army. In 1941, stables were built along with the riding ground in Hiyoshi, establishing it as their practice base.

Among the 43 clubs of the Athletic Association, the Equestrian Club is the only one that handles living creatures. Because it deals with living animals, it has unique characteristics and activities not found in other clubs. In the approximately 2,650 m² riding ground, enclosed by stables and fences, nearly 20 horses are kept, and two full-time grooms are stationed to care for them. Practices are held there for equestrian competitions (show jumping, dressage, and eventing). Show jumping is a competition where riders jump over 10 or more obstacles, competing for the lowest number of penalty points for knockdowns. Dressage is a scored event where a prescribed routine is performed within a 20 m x 60 m arena. Eventing is a competition where a single horse and rider pair competes for a combined score in show jumping, dressage, and cross-country. For competitions, the horses are transported to the venue, so the Equestrian Club also owns a special truck (a horse van).

Unlike a regular field, the riding ground is covered with sand, making it soft and not at all suitable for people to run on.

In 2021, as part of the Equestrian Club's 100th-anniversary project, the stables were expanded. The purpose was to create a more relaxing environment for the horses by enlarging the stalls, which had become cramped due to the increasing size of horses in recent years. The expansion had to be planned with the horses' needs as the standard in every detail, such as ensuring there were no protrusions and lining the lower walls with rubber.

A monument called the "Bakonhi" (Monument for the Souls of Horses) is enshrined as if watching over the riding ground. Literally, it is a monument to console the souls of horses, something unique to a club that handles living creatures. This Bakonhi was erected in 1949 to commemorate the club's 30th anniversary. With the expansion of the stables, it had to be relocated, and a Shinto priest performed a prayer ritual with the involved parties in attendance. An urn was unearthed from beside the monument. It contained the buried bones of the horse "Fink," who competed in the 1976 Montreal Olympics with Mr. Tsunekazu Takeda (class of 1970), who also served as the Equestrian Club's coach for six years starting in 1983.

Since ancient times, horses have been one of the closest animals to humans, living alongside them as a means of transportation and as workers in agriculture and construction. While opportunities to interact with horses have become rare in modern society, at the Hiyoshi riding ground, daily activities are carried out with horses as partners.

(Hiroshi Watanabe, Office of Facilities and Property Management)