When people domesticated horses around 5500 years ago, their lives changed immensely. Among many benefits, the speed, strength, and endurance of these animals presented a great advantage in warfare, which people made use of from the very start. Despite these advantages, most Greek poleis possessed only a small number of cavalries in antiquity, since the terrain they lived on was mountainous and rocky and thus unsuitable for raising horses. Except for Thessaly, Boeotia and Corinth who had well-established cavalries used to fight regularly, cavalries of other poleis were only rarely directly involved in battles. More often they would be used for scouting and currier services, spying on enemies, keeping surveillance of the borders and keeping peace within towns. Cavalries gained great importance under the command of Alexander the Great. The use of horses in battle co-shaped some of the equestrian sports disciplines such as javelin horseback throw and horse races known as apobates, anabates and anthippasia in Greek. Both in the hippodrome and on the battlefield the horses and their riders had to show a great level of courage, strength and endurance as well as skill, stability and composure. Since only the richest members of the society owned horses, they were usually the ones who constituted the cavalries and won awards in cavalry competitions. However, the owners themselves did not compete as riders or cart drivers in these competitions but hired professional jockeys or slaves for these dangerous jobs.
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