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Even Alexander the Great and his Macedonians were believed to have had a high horse for practising mounting and dismounting.

In the 4^th century AD a certain Vergetius described in an “Outline of the Roman Legions” how Roman soldiers practised on wooden horses. As this “epitoma rei militaris” was still in use in the 19^th century, someone must have dug up the description of gymnastics on the horse as early as the 17^th century and a form of vaulting arose from that.

This art of vaulting played a great role right into the 18^th century especially in the Academies of Knights and the fencing schools of the universities. The host of textbooks from this period are proof of this fact.

The original “real” horse form, with the head and tail, was to evolve in the course of its development and changing use.

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The head was increasingly bent forward, in order not to impede straddling, for example. Legs and body became more and more abstract.

Gradually the former saddle developed into the later pommel.

Guts Muths (1759 -1839)
replaced the saddle with iron bends.

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Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (1778 - 1852) had three different horses at Berlin’s Hasenheide (the first German training ground for gymnasts in 1811):
	the most lifelike version with head and tail,
	one covered in leather without a mane or an erect neck,
	and the wooden “Schwingel”, the German for vault, so dubbed by Jahn, who despised the influence of foreign words in his language.

One of the few remaining gymnastics horses from the Hasenhelde period now stands in the former home of Friedrich Ludwig Jahn in Freyburg/Unstrut (GER). It is one of the exhibits in what is now the attractive Jahn Museum (photo, right).

Vault 1900 (Germany)

Turnpferd um 1900

For decades there was no such thing as a vaulting horse. The pommel horse was simply positioned lengthwise, the pommels were removed and wooden knobs were placed in the two holes, in order to avoid finger injuries.

The length: At first it was 190 cm, later 180 cm, in 1955 the horse was reduced in size to 160 cm. The height: Originally 130 cm high and since the 1955 size reduction it has been the stipulated 133 cm for men (women: 120 cm).
(Translation: Robin Mitchell/Berlin)	German version