From tradition to sport: Horseback archery’s rise in the USA

As the calendar has turned to 2026, horseback archery in the USA stands at a remarkable inflection point. What was once a near-forgotten discipline rooted in centuries of equestrian tradition has attracted new participants across the country and secured a place on the international competitive stage.

Lewisburg, Tennessee, hosted the third International Horseback Archery Alliance World Championships from 19 to 21 September 2025, welcoming 56 athletes from 190 countries and highlighting the USA’s growing role in the revival of a discipline that had all but disappeared from public view.

For those curious about the deeper heritage of mounted archery, a feature published in 2020 charts how horseback archers once shaped ancient and medieval warfare across continents – from composite bows adapted for use on horseback, to military tactics such as the famed Parthian shot – offering context for the enduring appeal of this unique fusion of horsemanship and archery.

Horseback archery can be traced back thousands of years, including to the time of the ancient Egyptians, with horses weaponised to defeat armies with devastating military effect.

It was a feature in ancient and medieval conflicts in Asia and Europe but also in the USA by Native American nations such as the Sioux, Cheyenne, Blackfoot and Comanche plains tribes, who utilised it for hunting as well as fighting.

The 21st century, however, is no longer a time for horseback archery – also known as mounted archery – on the battlefield.

Instead, horseback archery is now mainly seen as sport and leisure, with it making an ascendancy in the USA over the past decade.

“Mounted archery itself kind of disappeared for many years and then around the late 1980s, early ’90s, there was a little bit of a revival of some history buffs that got back into it,” said Elizabeth Tinnan, the founder of Chattahoochee Horse Archers, a club in north-west Georgia. “It fluctuated as far as public participation very minimally and I would say in the early 2000s, it started really picking back up.”

In competitions sanctioned by the International Horseback Archery Alliance, athletes shoot on horses running at high speeds on a straight track ranging from 90 to 150 metres, the length depending on the discipline or “styles”, between timers with additional 25-metre run-in and run-outs.

There are also cross-country hunt tracks with 3D targets which can range even further, from 250 to 1500 metres and above.

All bows are stripped-back laminated recurve, with beginners starting on draw weights between 10 lb and 15 lb, while for professional competitors it is more common to have theirs between 20 lb and 30 lb.^

Tinnan’s role in setting up Chattahoochee in 2016, however, is only a small part of her wider involvement in the sport.

She is not only a coach, but also one of the world’s leading competitive horseback archers, ranked number 15 in the world and the president of the Mounted Archery Association of the Americas.

Tinnan first heard of horseback archery from friends who had done a class with Lukas Novotny in Georgia, who is the owner of the Saluki Bow company and widely regarded as one of the sport’s all-time greats.

A friend’s recommendation turned out to be a life-changing moment for Tinnan. As her passion and knowledge grew incessantly, she noticed a gap in the market in her locality and became a specialist horseback archery teacher, quitting her previous jobs as a farm labourer and auto parts store manager to pursue a full-time career in the sport.

“I was at a really pivotal point in my life with a lot of change happening in my life and this was something that I clung to,” said Tinnan, who is now based at her namesake Elizabeth Tinnan Mounted Archery club in Lewisburg, Tennessee, which has 40 active members. “It gave me empowerment and encouragement and something to focus on through all those changes.”

“I saw when I was able to start introducing people to this, I saw the lights come on, and the enjoyment on people’s faces. It just drew me closer and closer to it, to a point it was like a snowball effect.”

“I stumbled into all of it, and it was, in a way, serendipitous that this is what I feel like I was meant to be doing.”

Tinnan’s base in the south-east has made it a stronghold for horseback archery in the USA, but as part of her mandate to spread the sport as much as possible, she has helped set up clubs along the east coast, and in Colorado, Washington, Oregon and California, to name a few.

One club in the latter state, Poseidon’s Horse Archers at Hidden Creek Ranch, saw Tinnan run one of the very first sessions and, five years on, it has become an internationally regulated track which now hosts several national competitions a year.

The number of active Mounted Archery Association members fluctuates in the country between 500 and 600, with around 250 actively competing, and the number of USA entries for international competitions has risen from 21 in 2021 to 36 in 2024.

Tinnan says the sport in the USA has grown “rapidly” in the past decade and that the world championships being held at her home track next year in the Tennessee Valley was the ultimate vindication of its growth.

Although she has made numerous friends across the States and the world through competition that she cherishes, coaching has been Tinnan’s calling, especially teaching the paramount connection between archer and horse.

“Horses are really at the centre of everything. What I do is to create and develop good relationships between people and the horses, and for the horses to not be used as a vehicle which would be quite easy to have happened, especially for people who don’t own horses or get into the sport not as horse people.”

“It’s really easy to be hooked on this because hitting a target standing on the ground is exciting and thrilling and empowering on its own, but then when you involve a 1000-pound animal, that can sometimes make it pretty cool,” Tinnan added.

“Without them, this sport obviously wouldn’t exist, but the connection there between horse and rider is quite incredible.”

When Tennessee Valley hosted the World Championships in 2025, it certainly was a poignant moment for Tinnan and the sport’s history in the USA.

A skill that was used for foraging and warfare has become a pleasurable pastime for hundreds of Americans, with the participation numbers growing every year.

Thanks to people like Elizabeth Tinnan, Lukas Novotny and other horseback archery trainers, it shows that remnants of the past can still live on and be positively adapted as niche sports for the future.

Header image courtesy of Elizabeth Tinnan.
IHAA World Championships images courtesy of Jouke Boerma.