Hard to believe, but we’re just four months away from the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games, which commence September 25 in Lexington, Kentucky, at the famed Kentucky Horse Park. So let’s forge on with a look at the next-to-last of the eight disciplines you’ll be seeing: vaulting.

 Most of us have probably seen vaulting, although we may not have thought of it as such. When my parents took me to the circus as a child, I was dazzled by the flashily outfitted acrobats and their gymnastic feats on, off, and anywhere in between the stately cantering horses. That’s vaulting in a nutshell, although the International Equestrian Federation (FEI) states that the sport actually has military origins in the form of training mounted warriors to balance on their horses even while attacking and performing evasive maneuvers with handsful of weapons.

 Modern vaulting, which has been an FEI-recognized discipline since 1983, contains three elements. The first is the horse, who must be a rock-steady character capable of cantering on a 15- to 20-meter circle at a metronome-like steady, slow tempo. He must be unflappable enough not to bat an eyelash when one, two, or more vaulters run up to him, run beside him, launch themselves onto and off his back, and perform any number of acrobatic feats while balancing on his back or neck. At the same time, he must be fit enough to maintain his gait for many minutes at a time without flagging, and strong enough to handle being used as an equine springboard by multiple people