Photos provided by Stefanie Strobl
In this exclusive interview with Chris Hector, Australia’s most experienced Olympic level eventer, Andrew Hoy, talks about how Australia can get back on the track to Olympic Gold.
Looking at it on a world scale, the Germans are really the only ones who seem to be bringing on very, very good younger riders. I mean, if you look at the UK – after we get past the rusted-on William Fox-Pitt – none of their riders are getting any younger, they haven’t had any starry additions in the last few years. The young man who rode at Normandy, Harry Meade looked just like his father in the 1960s. The Americans, aside from a few renegade Australians that they smuggled in, have not produced another generation of riders. Is it simply that the rest of the world is producing teams that could win in the 1990s and that Germany is the only country that can produce a team that can win in the 2010s?
The UK have not won a team Gold medal at an Olympic Games since 1972. That’s quite a long time ago. They have won many European Championships, and the World Championships in 2010.
The outdoor arena at the base, Somerby Stables in Leichestershire
But I feel that the UK is definitely going forward. They have had an enormous amount of money spent on the sport. Will Connell, who was with the British Equestrian Federation as the High Performance Director, changed the sport enormously in all phases. He has now gone to America to take on a role with the American Federation. So it is going to be interesting to see where they are at, but they were well off-the-pace in Normandy.
In the UK, because it is such a strong sport, I sometimes wonder if riders become comfortable, because they have so much old traditional support from families – and that’s wonderful. But sometimes if you have to move from the Southern Hemisphere to the Northern Hemisphere you go with a completely clean page. And that’s what I found that I’ve done. Moving to my latest location in Leicestershire was a bigger move for me, than it was to move from Australia. Because I have changed all of my service providers, I have got new staff and a completely new facility. It was built in 2007, and I believe there’s a very good way forward there.
And you have made the clever move of having a relationship with your own PR advisor?
The job had nothing to do with the relationship (laughs…). Steffi is very talented in her field, she has her own German office and she has just set up a UK office too. Her business has been going for five years; it was set up in 2010. But she has some enormous jobs, she is predominantly involved in equestrian sports, where she does the communication for major companies and show organisers. She does their complete set-up and for a show like Aachen she has 105 people working for her. She is very talented and communication is her area. She has just started a new job for Mercedes Benz, where she is doing a complete trade fair – they call it a fleet – for their trucks, cars and vans. That’s at the Nürburgring race track, so that’s another area where she is involved. But she has done golf and football tournaments as well.
If we suddenly rub the genie’s lantern and the genie appears and says, ‘Mr Hoy, we will be giving you all this power, what do you think you would like to do to get Australia competitive by Rio?’ What are you going to ask the genie to do?
Well, I am not the national coach or the High Performance Manager… so this could be interesting. The riders have to focus on what each individual rider needs to be successful. There is not one rider out there who has the same personality as me nor do I have the same personality as other riders. So it’s not one thing that I feel that we could do apart from say, each individual rider, along with the High Performance Director and Manager, needs to discuss what is needed for them to be successful. Those who don’t have horses need to actually source some, and sourcing horses, and sourcing owners is very much an individual task. Once they’ve got the horse power, they then need to make sure that they have got a very good structure in place which is the complete management of horses to get them to the top level and be competitive there.
Andrew and Rutherglen at the London Games, attention to detail in the dressage phase
For me, I am just going to work on my own personal skills in training so that I can make sure that I’ve got my horses there.
It was unfortunate this year at Burghley that I had a virus go through the whole yard. I’ve spoken with my vet and also the team vet to find out what I could have done to prevent this, and what I need to do in the future. It is like us getting the common cold, it is something that happens. I have to step forward from there and just work for it not to happen again, but I haven’t got a solution at this point-in-time.
You were speaking about sourcing the right horses. I mean you are riding Warmblood horses, but they are very much Thoroughbred-type horses. Do you think, perhaps the problem with our riders was that they went ‘oh we can’t have Thoroughbreds anymore, we need Warmbloods.’ But they went and got Warmbloods that were sort of old-fashioned, heavy Warmbloods whereas the Germans are so successful at finding Warmbloods that are 75 percent Thoroughbred and really can do the job?
Without doubt. You still need a lot of Thoroughbred in your horse to be competitive with the cross-country phase. Most of the cross-country courses now are determined on time. At the WEG no one got the time, same at Burghley, it’s not that there are any traps out there. It’s just that it is difficult. I believe that when it went to the short format, maybe a lot of people went for a swing too much the other way.
The dressage is very competitive, there just needs to be that attention to detail now. I believe the riders need to be very clinical with their assessment and not become emotional. I sometimes see riders become emotional, ‘I didn’t get a good dressage mark and that judge doesn’t like me’ and all this kind of thing. Well, just make sure your performance makes them like you.
Time was up, for Andrew there was a plane waiting, a long long flight to the UK, and the next phase in his extraordinary career…
Lovely post! Thank you for sharing! Good luck! 🙂