It seems to me, that equestrian sport – particularly eventing - in South East Asia is at a crossroads. Some time ago, and especially in Thailand, eventing was targeted as THE sport that offered the greatest chance of Olympic participation. An energetic program paid off with fine results, gold at the Asian Games, and gold at the SEA Games. It was a strategy that had inherent risks: older more experienced horses gave the Thais an instant start, but even at the SEA Games last year, the writing was on the wall.
The team held its place by dint of luck and lots of good management. Every vet check was a nail-biting ordeal, and at least one gold medal winner should have been belled in the dressage. It took all of the magical skills of Heath Ryan and his Aussie helpers, to get the horses through, but now sympathetic observers, like the Swiss international rider, judge and course builder, Paul Weier, who has been travelling to the area for 17 years, feel that the sport is going backwards.
School-masters are all very well, but old, sore and crotchety school masters don’t always teach the lessons the riders need to learn. There is no doubt that the riding in the main is of quite a high standard, the dressage was perfectly pleasant to watch if you were prepared to forgive the odd, odd stride, but as the event progressed, horse after horse fell by the wayside.
It seems that the progress in riding skills has not been matched by a progress in horse management skills. The two Australian riders – Claudia Graham, and Blair Richardson (riding for New Zealand) – were horrified when one Thai rider successfully completed the course, and kept riding his seriously clagged mount around once he’d crossed the finishing line, waving at his pals. Get the gear off and cool him down before he dies, they pleaded.
It was Claudia’s first taste of eventing Thai style: “I’ve never been here before, it’s a bit of an experience… It’s impressive how keen they are over here to event, they want to improve and develop their riders and the levels they can compete at, but they also have a lot to learn about looking after the horses. They need good advice, especially for the horse welfare, on cross country day, they don’t seem to realise the importance of fitness – and the weather here is so hot, that they really have to concentrate that the horses are prepared well enough. Some of them were a little under-prepared.”
As it was, the leader after the cross country, Northern Cosmo, ridden by Weerapat Pitakanonda (‘Bomb’ to his Australian friends) was spun at the final vet check. The horse quite simply should never have been presented in the first place. Claudia was riding the 20 year old Allegro Con Motto (now called Perfect Plan) and when he was sent to the holding box, withdrew him – despite a fair degree of pressure to re-present.
“He was lame,” said Claudia, “I thought if he was mine I wouldn’t want to ride him.” And Claudia is right, the locals have to learn that it is not a game of trick the ground jury, eventing is about presenting fit horses and keeping them that way. In my opinion, if the Thais are to make the next move up the ladder to a spot at the Games, they need to buy some young, started horses, and spend some time learning how to take care of them in Australia – because those skills are not available in Thailand right now.
Course designer, Wayne Copping has been a regular visitor over the past couple of years, but he too is worried about the future:
“They all ride reasonably well, the problem is more with the horses, some of them are a bit old, some have been set in their ways of going, and some are not as easy to ride as you might think. These are horses that have been going around for a number of years, and sometimes self-preservation is their greatest thing – they take the bit and charge at the fence.”
Is the next step moving on to some younger horses rather than the geriatric schoolmasters?
“Definitely, I think they need some horses that are starting out, that have a nice base on them, Pre-Novice coming into One Star. Then they probably need to compete in Australia for a season, do four or five events before they bring them back here. That way they’ll get a better understanding of what is required, the rules, the preparation, the whole bit.”
The Malaysians got lucky when their original plan of preparing for the SEA Games in Australia was abandoned because of EI, and they went to New Zealand, where former world silver medallist, Trudy Boyce found them some very nice, and seemingly quite sound, horses. A year later, Serious Fun is still looking seriously nice for Mohd Aizat Bin Abdul Malik. The dressage scored 63.3 and after a clear clear cross country and just one rail in the showjumping, they finished in second place.
According to Sumiko Suzuki, the Japanese judge who has officiated in Australia, the sport of eventing is now getting some assistance from the Japan Racing authorities, and gaining strength all the time. It was good news / bad news, for the two Japanese riders. Takayuki Yumira, who rode a very nice and controlled line through the difficult duo of apexes on Saku, was spat out the front a couple of fences later, when the horse left a leg, and the rider broke his collar bone. Keiichiro Nagamatsu, riding Acillias, fared better, with just 10 time faults on the cross country and three showjumping rails to take third place.
But at the end of the day, victory went to one school-master whose generous Thoroughbred heart allows him to keep teaching the right lessons. Mr Moss (Australians will remember him being ridden by the Scots rider, Pauline McKee – he even went round Adelaide one year when Matt Ryan paid a visit). Mossy was ridden very competently by Promton Kingwan (Ice, to his mates) – 52.6 in the dressage, clear no time cross country and two poles in the showjumping. Ice took home the very generous prize money of 250,000 Bhat (that’s about $12,500).
Blair Richardson battled his way around the track on Maximus, coming home with just one runout, and still under time. Alas showjumping is not the chestnut’s thing and three rails left Blair out of the money.
While some of the riders tackled the cross country intelligently, far too many just galloped their horses wildly at the jumps, putting the horse at risk, and relying on it to get them out of trouble. For Paul Weier it was frustrating to watch:
“To see these facilities, it’s unbelievable. In this place you can run anything. Okay, there’s money involved – and the commitment of Harold Link and his family, and that is important. With no sponsor, then nothing happens, but on the other hand, I am very disappointed how riding here in Thailand, went down after the Asian Games, because then we really pushed judges, designers, TDs, riders, to come up to a higher standard. And after these Asian Games, we got lost somewhere. Jumping is coming down down down, I can’t tell you what’s the problem. My opinion – okay you need sponsors, but you only have sponsors when you have results, and if you look after your sponsor. If you don’t look after your sponsor, it’s not working.”
“In Switzerland, we have a good relationship with the sponsors, otherwise with such a small country we couldn’t go on. Here in Thailand, they are not looking after their sponsors or they cheat them. When they buy a horse somewhere, they come to Europe, it might be a good horse but cheating in a way. Many of them are too lazy, they are not working. It was good having a party last night but next morning you have to go on, that’s what I learnt from my father, you can stay out all night, but next morning, you have to be at work.”
“I did it when I had the team at home, we went to parties, but the next morning I wanted to test the guys, and the ones who weren’t willing to work, they missed out. You have to battle in the saddle, if the weather conditions are bad, or if a horse is a bit stressed by the transport, you have to battle, otherwise you cannot win.”
The worst thing at this event was the speed on the cross country?
“That’s right.”
So what is the solution?
“Coming back to what we said about people being spoiled, in my country, Switzerland, the same as Australia or New Zealand, the work at the equestrian events is done 90% by volunteers. Here in Thailand, everybody is paid, so they don’t care – they get mileage payments, good hotel accommodation, fantastic food, a party, plus payment per day. We can’t work like this at home, so we have to rely on our volunteers, and that’s why we have to battle in a way but we try to take care of the volunteers – next week you can ride on the course, maybe it’s a little bit smaller, that’s our offer for them. They appreciate that and we’ve got a lot of young people riding one metre, one metre ten, and from there you can pick up the top riders. Just relying on three or four top riders, semi-professionals, you can’t bring the sport forward, no way.”
Perhaps the way is for them to ride over Derby type courses on an arena, until they can judge the pace?
“That’s why we made a Derby course, and this time as well as the eventing we had a Derby – with some natural fences, a hill, a coffin, a bank, so they learn to go up and down hill. They have to get the feeling in their backsides: we have to ride 400, 450 or 500mpm – not just chasing chasing chasing. I spent ten years in the cavalry school, and my boys, three times a week they had to go on the sand track to gallop, 350, 400, 450, without a watch or anything. And if they couldn’t do it, they had to learn to do it for the next day. You learn riding by doing riding.”
Our riders were very concerned at the lack of knowledge shown at the end of the cross country…
“That’s part of education. My biggest concern is horsemanship. We have judges, they can read the rule books, but they don’t know where the head and the tail of the horse is. That will be the biggest problem in the coming years worldwide. Perhaps not in Australia and New Zealand because you stay with two feet on the ground, you are horsemen, you live with your horse – but all the other countries, they just buy the horses and think that’s it.”
There is no doubt that eventing at the Olympic Games is under threat. The sport is difficult and expensive to run and there are plenty of IOC delegates who would be happy to see it disappear, and that is why we need to involve as many countries as we can in eventing so they will vote with us to keep the sport at the Games. There are keen eventing enthusiasts in our region, and our EFA should have a plan in place to help them – to help them learn and make the next step… and the vital lesson they have to learn is that in the immediate future, the goal is not to win at all costs, the goal is to do it right… and success will follow.