Horse riding or equestrian is one of the sports that is looked upon in the East with great reverence and respect. And the Orientals consider it one of the most honorable forms of sports and the highest value. They hardly go beyond the stage of childhood until they devote themselves to training in it, especially if they are from honorable homes or families known for their spacious living and abundant money. To train them in equestrianism and their proficiency in it, you see them riding the wildest and most common horses in a manner that indicates dignity, good features and majesty of prestige. While riding on them, they perform many kinds of movements that strengthen their strength, open the doors of horses in front of them and develop their intuition; So that the presence of mind becomes one of their most special qualities. The Mamluks in the previous era excelled in this type of sports, and their mastery of using weapons while they were on horses and tamed horses to perform the fastest and most difficult movements, led to the description of the cavalry teams and fragments of them as the best knights on the face of the earth.
It was one of the most important sports in Egypt, and was banned due to many injuries. The game is played with two enemy knights running from opposite sides; So that they meet each other, and in the meantime, one of the two knights throws with the utmost force and intensity in his forearm a stick of palm-tree, varying in length from four feet to six, intended to injure the other knight. It is not, of course, unless he exerts a great deal of his strength in throwing that stick at his counterpart. But the face of the trick in this game is that the knight who wants to hit the newspaper can avoid it, and even kidnap it with his hand as it penetrates the air and is aimed at him. Before the Arab knights emerge to perform this military game, they spend a long time rehearsing to hit a specific fixed object.
