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The equestrian events gave Australians one of the most enduring images of the Atlanta Games in 1996.

In the closing stages of the teams three-day event, with Australia in the lead, Gillian Rolton crashed to earth from her mount Peppermint Grove during the cross country event.

Despite the pain from a broken collarbone and two broken ribs, Rolton remounted Peppermint Grove, anxious not to let her team-mates down.

A short time later, she fell again. Showing enormous courage, again she remounted and finished the course.

It would have been easier for Rolton to succumb to her injuries after the first fall. Each team requires three riders to successfully complete each discipline, and Rolton, riding third for Australia, was determined to complete the course.

After all, if she failed and the mount of the fourth rider pulled up lame, the Australians would have failed to finish.

In the final analysis, Rolton's efforts were not required and the Australians won gold, but her deeds are the stuff of Olympic legend.

Afterwards, Rolton described the ordeal like this: "I was just so pumped up, he [Peppermint Grove] was jumping so well, he was on time and I was going round a turn and he just fell over, he hit the gourd, fell over and landed on top of me.

"I got back on the horse and kicked up the hill and it wasn't really until I jumped into the water that I realised my left arm really didn't ground any more.

"I fell off there and got back on and I thought I've got to get a team score - because I was third to go we didn't have a full team around and I had to finish so I just kept going... I was riding it one hand most of the way around," Rolton said.

Her courage echoed that of Australian equestrian legend Bill Roycroft. At the Rome Games in 1960 he too fell during the cross-country, breaking his collarbone and suffering concussion.

However, Roycroft shrugged the injuries off, riding in the show jumping the following day to enable the Australian team to win gold.

However, even these brave efforts pale in comparison with the superhuman effort put in by German rider Konrad von Wangenheim at the Berlin Games in 1936.

Like Rolton and Roycroft, von Wangenheim was thrown from his horse during the cross-country but remounted and completed the course, in the process negotiating 30 more obstacles, because he knew his team would be disqualified if he did not.

The following day he competed in the show jumping with his arm in a sling.

Again he fell, this time his horse landing on top of him. But the German was not to be denied.

He remounted and completed the course without another fault, helping his team to the gold medal.

Equestrian events have a unique place in Olympic sport - they are the only events where humans are teamed with animals.

It is also the only Olympic sport that pits men and women against each other as absolute equals.

In 1956 when Melbourne hosted the Games, the equestrian events were held in Stockholm because of Australia's strict quarantine laws.

The Olympic history of events involving horses can be traced back to 682 BC when a four-horse chariot race was run at the Hippodrome in Olympia at Greece's 25th Olympiad.

In the modern era, show jumping was part of the 1900 Games, but the full program of dressage, show jumping and three-day eventing was introduced in 1912 and in all three disciplines, individual and team medals are awarded.

Each of these disciplines has its own unique history. Dressage has its origins in the French military.

It began as a method of training for military horses. Indeed, only commissioned officers were allowed to compete in equestrian events until 1952 when the sport was opened to civilians, including women for the first time.

The sport has also been described as horses performing ballet.

Three-day eventing also has military roots. Comprising show jumping, dressage and cross-country, it began as a series of endurance tests set for the cavalry.

In their early stages, these tests were mainly on flat ground, but fences were added in the late 1700s.

That 1936 three-day event dominated by von Wangenheim illustrated how tough the event is.

Just 27 of the 50 horses completed the course. One competitor who fell off his horse had to run 2.5 miles to catch it in order to remount and another searched for almost three hours before finding his horse after a fall.

Three horses died during that 1936 three-day event, a story which was repeated in 1960 and 1968.

But after 1968, strict safety provisions were put in place and since that time no horse has been killed or seriously injured in three-day eventing.

Olympic show jumping began in 1900 with three different disciplines - the show jumping as it's recognised today, plus the long and high jumps.

The long and high jumps have since disappeared, and the technique of riders has changed, but essentially the show jumping remains the same as in those early days.

In recent times, Germany has become the dominant show jumping nation, winning the past three team gold medals.

In China, the equestrian events will be held in Hong Kong.