THE HORSE MAGAZINE

July 2004

Selection Selection Selection

Well, last month, my feelings were that of the five available eventing positions in our Eventing team for the Athens Games, that Phillip Dutton on the basis of his Lexinton 3DE results and Andrew Hoy from the Badminton results, had pretty well firmed up as certain selections into the Australian Team. Well as certain as an eventer can firm up because should their horses prove not to be sound enough when the final team is nominated then they just get dropped!!
With Australia running real hard for its fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal all of the horses will be training to the max and every rivet in every body will be stretching to the limit. It only needs one little thing to let go and whole dream disintegrates into a sad story that only that one lonely person will remember to tell years later, usually when they are half drunk “I nearly made it… once.”
The Australian team is to be named on July 30th so there are still three spots still up for grabs. In my opinion the team will be made up of four gladiators and one amazing individual that has the ability to lead the team to victory by posting an individual gold medal run.
The gladiators themselves are indeed awesome in their own right and are combinations that are expected to finish in the top ten, even if they are not producing absolute personal bests.
Well since the last column, Taupo 3DE in New Zealand has been and gone and Olivia Bunn on Top of the Line emerged the winner. Olivia - in my opinion - has just firmed up into a third gladiator spot. There were a number of Australians at Taupo, and Olivia opened the door for them by not producing a brilliant dressage test. However from there she didn’t miss a trick being one of only two combinations to go clear cross country and under time and then showjumping clear as only Olivia can do.
Olivia has twice been 7th at the World Championships, once in Rome in 1998 and again in Jerez in 2002. Although she won Taupo, the fact that her dressage score opened the gates for other competitions means the performance is still of Gladiator status only. To be a contender for the individual medals, a rider will have to be able to produce a blinder of a dressage test and then follow up with cross country and showjumping of standards similar to Olivia’s.
So two spots are left, a gladiator spot and a brilliant individual spot. Trials still to come are Blenheim 3DE in England where Matt Ryan will start Bonza Puzzle who still isn’t qualified, Punchestown 3DE in Ireland where Wendy Schaeffer will start, and Samur, France where I think Megan Jones may be about to have a final fling, and, of course, the Sydney ODE using the Olympic format.

The Sydney event is the last and final start for all Australian based riders. Boyd Martin and True Blue Toozac, winners of the Adelaide**** 3DE last year will make their big bid for the brilliant individual Olympic spot at this final trial. Every Australian able to qualify for this final trial, will truck in from every state in Australia and throw every cell of talent and training at this trial and Boyd’s Claim. The next four weeks are going to be fascinating.
Now to the Dressage. Kristy Oatley-Nist has been putting up some big runs in Germany C.D.I. Dressage shows, at Hamburg, Kristy rode Don Bolero to second place in the Grand Prix with a score of 69.79%!! She went on from there to win the Kur with 74.2%!!
A week later though at Wiesbaden, Don Bolero was again entered in the Grand Prix but retired on the final centre line. Kristy did however start Quando Quando to come 10th with a score of 67.29%!!
Mary Hannah also flew over to Germany to give her horse Pretender a start in the Grand Prix at Munich. She came 16th with a score of 61.54%.
Reigning supreme here in Australia is Crisp and Ricky MacMillan. She is actually in awesome form. As I see it Kristy is her biggest threat. Don Bolero is just the most sensational horse but still somewhat unreliable. Quando Quando seems to be much more even tempered but still young. What would you do if you were a selector??
As I write this column Melbourne 3DE is just 10 days away. I am taking three horses down for the World Cup ODE which runs around the 3DE Advanced cross country course. It should be awesome.
Diablo Heart is having his first step out in the big time. Last year in the lower classes he could do no wrong and just won and won. This year has been a little trickier as we now have to do flying changes in the dressage tests! Oolala! Suffice to say we haven’t been going quite so well. He could take me another six months to get it totally sorted. There is such a thing as luck though and if we get some and the test goes well then this little black horse will put the “Frighteners” up the more favoured combinations! I also have the ride on Aston and Mr. Moss both of whom belong to Pauline McKee who has gone back to Scotland. Both of these horses are very talented jumpers.
At Melbourne there is to be a Guy’s team versus a Girl’s team. The Guy’s being myself on Diablo Heart, David Middleton on Warlock and John Bird on Barney Rubble. The Girls being Sammi McLeod on Black Odyssey, Rebel Morrow on Oaklea Groover and Olivia Bunn riding G.V. Sioux. Or that’s the girls at the moment, girls being girls they might all change their minds about where they are going. I guess we’ll know which bevy of beauties we are competing against when we actually get to the first trot up!

Photo 1

Certainly the girls are on pretty spectacular horses, but it’s probably fair to expect the natural superior horsemanship of the men to shine through at the end of the day!
Finally I thought I just might share with you these four photos of myself in action at Woridgee ODE on Saturday 29th May. The horse is a talented young novice horse called Meads. Photo 1 shows me feeling very smug with myself. This looks easy in the photo but the fence is on top of a pimple and the approach is steep. It is hard to get there accurately and forward and balanced. It is actually a narrow fence with a sloping slab face. If you look at photo 2 you get a bit of an idea what the first fence looks like on the approach. Anyhow photo one looks great at first glance. I guess the only thing to remark is there is a little bit of a surprised look on Meads’ face as he spots the ditch. Never-the-less he doesn’t miss a beat and draws to the ditch like a pro in two strides, jumps and then bounds up the next pimple in two strides to the fence out.
It is going so well that I think I just sat a tad quiet congratulating myself and then disaster struck. I think it all of a sudden occurred to Meads that there probably is another ditch on the landing side of this fence as well. With that thought, I think he just tried to have a little look down. Unfortunately when inexperienced horses look down they often lose their jump or forget to bring their front legs up.

Photo 2

In photo 2 you need to look hard but you can see that both front legs have failed to clear the front of the fence and things are starting to look not so good for me!
Photo 3 and I’m really in all sorts of trouble. I remember this exact moment as clear as anything in my mind as the camera has caught me peeking back as the horse. I knew that I had to get out of there fast and you can see me already pushing off with my left arm and kicking with my left leg to roll away.
The landing was really steep, not easily seen in the photo, so this helped. Its interesting to note the knees still hooked on the take off side of the fence.

Photo 3

Photo 4 is crash time. If you look at how close I am to the fence in photo 3 and then how far I have managed to roll by photo 4 you will get some idea of just how frightened I was and just how fast I managed to move. Had I not moved the bulk of the horse would have come down on top of me, Yikes!! As it was Meads’ back legs did land across my legs but that was it.
Unbelievable! Meads was 100% ok, has a tiny scratch on one knee and hasn’t missed a day’s work since. I was winded for a moment and so just lay there catching my breath.
When I’m in this sort of situation I always make myself be very calm and systematically run a check with my mind over my body from the tip of my toes to the tip of my fingers. If you are hurt you usually have a moment or two before the pain comes on and then it’s kind of hard to think. The other thing is that onlookers and officials always hang back from nasty accidents because they think they are not skilled enough to handle what just might be needed. I can tell you when a rider is seriously hurt it is just so frightening and so lonely for that person no matter who you are.To hear someone come charging in to your aid and take charge makes one hell of a difference even if all that person can do is comfort you and assure you that help is on its way. So next time you see a rider in trouble, even if you haven’t any idea who they are, just get in there fast until proper help arrives.

Photo 4

Certainly for me I survived this little misadventure fine and the people around were ever so nice although they looked more traumatised than me! Maybe I’ll take up fishing one day!

Cheers Heath

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