What a monster of a year is heading our way with promises of new Legends, Heroes and World record busting performances. Certainly a year to brace yourself for, it’s going to be a ‘rush’ and Australian successes can only continue if we drive on through with intellect and nerve.
Big on the horizon is the World Championships (WEG) in Spain later this year.
Can the Australian Eventers become World Champions? After making Olympic history by winning gold in 1992, 1996 and 2000 the time is right for the World Champ title.
Can the Australian based riders claim their rightful places in the selection of the team? When I say ‘rightful’ I am not necessarily advocating that any of the Australian based riders should be selected if they do not represent Australia’s best possible team members. What does concern me is that it is generally felt that the overseas based riders are generally older and more practised at politicising and right now, in line ball calls, will always get the selector majority vote. This is bad bad bad for the sport back here in Australia.
With the advent of the Adelaide Four Star 3DE (CCI****) we have inadvertently downgraded our traditional 3DEs (CCI***). Does this mean that no Australian riders winning CCI*** classes in the first half of this year are going to get serious consideration with a view to Team selection?? Certainly that is the concern of many riders. With no scheduled CCI**** competitions in Australia before the WEG, how many of our riders will pack up and make the enormous effort to compete either at Lexington CCI**** in the USA or Badminton CCI**** in the UK? Does that mean some riders that would otherwise have been team contenders will be unable to make these competitions and so not be considered? Is this good?"
Just roughly, to fly yourself and your horse to Badminton, base there for a few weeks before competing, do quarantine afterwards and then fly home, that would take a minimum of six weeks out of your year away from Australia and probably cost you in the vicinity of $50,000. What if the horse goes lame once you arrive over there because it steps on a stone (happens often enough) so you can’t start. Do you stay on, spend more time and money to start at a CCI*** which is of little more value than an Australian based event, or just come home without having even started? Really scary stuff. Once that money is spent, does this inhibit in any that rider’s resources and ability to stay on in the sport in the future? In my opinion the wrong selection procedures could inadvertently make the Australian based rider who is capable of leading an Australian Team to Gold - as indeed Stuart Tinney did at Sydney 2000, as indeed Wendy Schaeffer at Atlanta 1996 - an extinct species.
I would also go as far as to say that Matt Ryan who gate crashed the world at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, brought to bear an Australian desperation and approach which had at that time not yet been mellowed by his being based in the UK. Certainly it’s worth considering that all the Gold Medals have been led in by Australian based riders or in Matt’s case, a rider who had only relatively recently based in another country.
Of course from here you have to ask, why? Why are the really exciting performers in the big time likely to be Australian based? The answer is probably seriously complex but here are some of the considerations.
1. Practise makes perfect. The Eventing population here in Australia is small so everyone has a more realistic chance of being a winner. Practice winning and you’re in business. In the UK, there are just so many riders. One has to get one’s jollies even though one loses. The great British war cry is ‘you do it for fun, you know’ and ‘I was so pleased with Neddy even though he had one stop at the water (which was my fault) and a runout at the corner (he lost concentration for just a moment) and he hung a leg just a little and topped me off going into the sunken road (silly me!) and he napped back to the lorry when we looped back past the parking area (the course designer should be more considerate) BUT I was just so pleased with him. This attitude is encouraged and rightly so because this enormous population of losers supports the sport. This population keeps the sport financial and enthused. The loser philosophy is however a way of life and gently infiltrates into all but the hardiest of souls.
Already Australian riders based in the UK say the selection criteria is unfair. To make selection for the Australian elite squad, a rider must finish a CCI*** with a score of less than 52 penalties and place in the top 12. The Northern Hemisphere riders say its much easier to place in the top 12 here than it is there, and perhaps they should be able to place in the top 20! What everyone needs to appreciate is that the discard score of the Australian Team at the Sydney Olympics was indeed 12th place. In a team of four, only the best three count. What’s more, that discard score was from a Northern Hemisphere based rider.
This idea that you can be a loser in the Northern Hemisphere and still be better than a winner in the Southern Hemisphere, is really really dangerous.
2. The sport is in a state of continual evolution. What won yesterday will not win tomorrow. We Australians are, believe it or not, born into a genuine wilderness. If we put the entire Australian population on our coast equally spaced apart one person would not be able to see the next. If the entire UK population were stood on their coastline, not only would they be shoulder to shoulder but also hundreds deep. We Australians inherit a wonderful freedom and as such a natural affinity with thinking and living outside the square. Take for instance the aggressive cooling techniques developed for Atlanta to increase recovery in the 10 minute box, and combat the heat. Pioneered in by Dr Leo Jeffcott (an Australian Veterinarian of course) it was revolutionary and all Team managers, vets, Chefs d’Equipes etc etc were counselled in forums and sent miles of literature so as to keep the horse’s best interests and health as No 1 consideration. Do you know that at Atlanta the only team to adopt ‘aggressive cooling’ wholeheartedly was the Australian team!!
Not one other team could completely forsake traditional techniques totally and some almost refused to forsake them at all! The Australians inherit this incredible affinity with being able to think and operate outside the square.
Recently, November 2001, the World Short Course Eventing Championships were held at Werribee as part of Equitana. The idea was to make eventing more spectator friendly, to be fast moving and exciting, and to produce instant final results, which would make the sport much easier to present on TV. The prizemoney was quite considerable, $9000 to the winner and so many of us trekked down to Werribee from our different states. I personally loved it as I was fortunate enough to win, riding the most fabulous little horse called Star Struck, who is 15.1 hh and is owned by one of my working pupils, Emma Mason. This concept however was seriously innovative and has the potential to do to our traditional 3DE what one day cricket did to the Test match. Maybe not all objectives were initially achieved but unless you have the nerve to fly these ideas then we will never know. What is more important is that it took an Australian group of organizers and sponsors who had the nerve to once again go outside the square.
If we are going to maintain our Gold medal status at the Athens Olympics in 2004, we will need to have seriously moved the goal posts through which we scored at Sydney 2000. Chris Hector, our editor, certainly didn’t enjoy this concept and I think you will find his view elsewhere in the magazine. Chris a traditionalist as indeed in lots of ways, am I - but if we don’t keep evolving we will seriously expose our sport to becoming a dinosaur and that could well mean extinction. Personally I think the Werribee organizing committee (headed up by Col Arnold, Barry and Lynn Roycroft I think) are to be applauded.
3. The other huge advantage of being an Australian Event rider based in Australia is the fabulous supply of the Australian Thoroughbred. He is seriously cheap to buy and he is seriously the best horse in the world for winning Olympic and World Championship 3DE gold medals. The best dressage and showjump riders at the moment are the Germans. Through the German breeding programme, mainly Warmbloods, the riders in Germany have access to the best showjumping horses and the best dressage horses. Once riders are exposed to opportunity in terms of the best equipment they will in most cases respond. For the rest of the world to challenge the Germans they must pay sometimes huge sums to acquire horses of equivalent standard. The countries showing signs of challenging the Germans are those with similarly advanced breeding programs producing horses for their own riders. In truth we’re just lucky that our Thoroughbred is so highly compatible with eventing however that’s just our luck.
So anyway there are just three considerations as to why we have had such amazing recent Olympic successes and why the Australian selectors should be very careful about discouraging the Australian based Event rider. There are lots and lots of other considerations, but for now, from me, that’s it.
Cheers
Heath

Return to the top of the page

HOME