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George Morris was himself a rider at the highest Olympic level, but it is as a teacher, a mentor, that he has produced a whole series of brilliant jumping riders, shaping them and their horses on to international careers. George has visited and taught in Australia in the past, but after a much too long an absense, he is returning to star at Equitana and conduct clinics in NSW and Victoria.
George’s clinics are not only packed solid with highly sophisticated instruction, they are also highly entertaining. Mr Morris has a wicked sense of humour and woe betide the noisy infant in the stands, or the rider who is not paying 110% attention. At a clinic some years ago, as Australian Showjumping Rider, Jamie Inglis, drifted off into some private reverie during one of George’s clinics, he was snapped back to attention with the line… “Jamie, Jamie just because there is a lot of sand around you, there is no point waiting for a wave…”
George Morris is one of those rare people who despite spending a lifetime riding horses, teaching riders, and thinking about horse, still retains his freshness and his enthusiasm, and combines it with an extraordinary ability to express himself…
“I’ve been riding my whole life, and I’ve had a professional stable for 40 years…”
But what made you take that path – I understand that at one stage you almost went to Hollywood and into the movies?
“I rode as an amateur right up until the 1960 Olympic Games, and in those days, if you weren’t an absolute amateur you couldn’t compete in the Olympic Games. I had to find a profession. I had a group of friends, Tab Hunter, Tony Perkins, Rosalind Russell, some very famous actor friends, and I thought I’d try my hand at that, because being a professional horseman in the early 60s was not considered very correct. I tried the acting but found out I really wanted to be a professional horseman, basically a teacher. I had a very great teacher’s teacher in a man named Gordon Wright, who formed my method. Then of course Bert de Nemethy after that. I had great trainers to become a teacher, not just to become a rider, but to become a teacher. I’ve always liked teaching, helping other people, communicating my beliefs about riding and training horses. I’ve done that officially for 40 years.”
You have become associated with a very American way of riding jumping horses with very correct body position and way for the horse to go. What tradition were you drawing upon in developing this school of teaching?

“It’s the way I was taught. I was taught by Bertelan de Nemethy, Gordon Wright, Bill Steinkraus, Piero d’Inzeo, I was brought up in an era when style was a tradition. Now I would say style is universally accepted. Whether people know it or not, they look rather dimly on a rider that is not very correctish. Years ago there were the riders who were the stylists, and riders who were not stylists. Today if you rode in that old fashioned Australian way at a European or American show, you would look odd. I think style has been accepted and people don’t think so much about it because it is just part of the norm today.”
I can remember watching you teach and what interested me was the way in which the lines and the shapes of the fences that you set up, taught the riders almost as much as what you were telling them with words?
“Exactly, I believe form and function go hand in hand. Poor form drastically affects function on the horse. I think good function necessitates good form, I don’t think form produces function or function produces form, they go hand in hand. What you are saying is very observant, I don’t know that many people have figured it out, that often what I do, what I set up, forces the rider to assume a better position.”
In the past you have been associated with the American Equitation system, but I hear that you now feel that perhaps equitation has gone off too much on a track all of its own?
“I think it has turned in on itself. I think that in the 1960s, 70s, early 80s, equitation was a means to an end. It has become an end in itself. Often wealthy people have two or three very expensive equitation horses, just for that. It has now turned in on itself. I don’t knock it. I think it still has a place. I don’t do ‘equitation people’ anymore, I just do jumpers. If I had juniors today, I certainly wouldn’t encourage them to stay in that equitation ring – it’s not healthy.”
But it still produces beautiful jumping riders like Peter Wylde?
“Peter Wylde won the Maclay Medal for equitation in 1983. I think there are some very good exercises to be learnt in the equitation ring. The precision and a smoothness and a correctness, but I has to be coupled with those riders riding jumpers as well, like McLain Ward who is a more recent graduate of the Equitation division. But that division itself has got too artificial and too soft.”
In the past you have been traditionally associated with Thoroughbred horses, are you finding the new age Warmblood a little more to your taste?
“No, I’m a Thoroughbred man. If you give me an Apache, a Jox, or Jet Run, that’s my favorite horse because they have built in impulsion. But the Warmblood horses being bred around the world right now have a great infusion of Thoroughbred blood. I’m talking about those Holsteiners of the 50’s, like Thiedemann’s Meteor, you’re talking about horses like Ratina and ET, horses of a very different type, but I am still a Thoroughbred man.”
And it will be a delight to once again see George in action with a few talented Australian Thoroughbreds, and he may even find some of our Warmbloods, slightly more to his taste…