{"id":19779,"date":"2015-01-03T14:07:15","date_gmt":"2015-01-03T03:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/?p=19779"},"modified":"2015-01-22T07:09:42","modified_gmt":"2015-01-21T20:09:42","slug":"19779","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/2015\/01\/19779\/","title":{"rendered":"The McDermott Saga – Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Print\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Story \u2013 Chris Hector & Photos \u2013 Roz Neave and Werner Ernst<\/h3>\n

For all Greg McDermott has the image of the rugged shearer from Wagga, it turns out that a formative influence was that most classical of horsemen, Franz Mairinger, the first Australian team coach \u2013 and trainer of the gold medal winning team at Rome.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother\u2019s mother lived at Bowral and Franz Mairinger used to stay at her place when he taught there. My mother and her mother never spoke after she married my father until I was 13 or 14. I went there and met her, and she said, you should come and stay. So Mum drove me there with the float and my horse, and I used to jump round the training cross-country course. Franz saw me jumping, and asked me to come up and join into his lesson \u2013 he was working with the eventers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI went back a few times, he started me off the right way. I was pretty wild when I met him. I went back for a few clinics and stayed with my Nan \u2013 he taught me the basics\u2026 then my next lesson was with George Morris, when the Olympic squad was picked for Seoul in 1988.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI took Shrimpy to the clinic which was at George Sanna\u2019s place, and I really got on with George. He wanted me to go back to the States with him \u2013 he liked me because he knew that if he said, go jump that shed, I would try to do it. If he told me to do three strides down a six stride line, I\u2019d try to do it. We\u2019ve become good friends with George. When I was in Europe, he was with the American team, and he\u2019d walk the course with them, then he\u2019d come and find me, and walk the course with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last month, we left Greg McDermott just as he started riding Mr Shrimpton, the horse that was to take him to the international stage. The gelding had lost confidence, but a run of little Queensland shows saw him back and firing, and Greg was ready to take on the world:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were sent over to New Zealand, to the Horse of the Year. Rod Brown and Slinky and myself. The selectors didn\u2019t really know me, and selection was a bit of a Sydney thing then. So they sent me to New Zealand to see if I could handle the pressure. I won every major event except the Horse of the Year, and I was second in that.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"McDermottShrimpyNZ_88_P\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Greg and Shrimpy in New Zealand<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cSo off we went to Seoul, for the Olympic Games. He was jumping sensationally when we went to the Games. Jeff McVean was in the team, and he knew all the European riders, and they used to come down to watch Shrimpy when I practice jumped him \u2013 he had people coming from miles away. He was so spectacular.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the warm-up class, I came equal first. In the second event, there was a really, really long double. George Morris was helping me, I said I can do it in two, he said, no you can\u2019t, anyone who does it in two will be in trouble. I tried it, he half took off, had the fence down, I finished the course, went to break into trot, and had to walk out of the arena. He had done his tendon. Fifth in the event, but as soon as I backed off, he just carried his leg. There was a German vet, and he came to see me. I can get you to the end of the event but we decided we didn\u2019t want to jump him \u2013 we brought him home. We had two reserves, Vicki Roycroft and George Sanna, and they were fighting something terrible, because one of them was going to miss out. I said to them, you don\u2019t have to fight any more, I\u2019m pulling out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe took him to Europe, and he had a carbon fibre tendon inserted and brought him home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"McDermott_Aachen90\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Mr Shrimpton \u00a0at Aachen 1990<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThen in 1990 we took him to Europe again, to the World Cup final, he was 20th<\/sup>. We went on to Aachen, down to Rome and then at Fontainebleau, when back to Susanne Bond\u2019s place near Gatwick, he wasn\u2019t well although the leg was good. We had to come home, and left him there with Suzanne\u2019s groom for the 30-day quarantine. George Morris went to visit him and said he was fretting. He got colic really bad, they tried to operate, but he died. They did a biopsy and found that his liver had been badly damaged by Patterson\u2019s Curse poisoning. Even though he had been on hard feed since he was a four-year-old, the damage had been done before that. It was such a sad time for us, he was always meant to come home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"McDermott_Rome_90\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Australian team in Rome: Greg McDermott, Suzanne Bond and Colleen Brook<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cBack in Australia, we had Navi Rellah, a big Buckskin horse. The selectors came and told me, you are on the next team to go away. I knew he wasn\u2019t good enough, and he had an issue with water. I said, no I don\u2019t want to go \u2013 and so I completely gave it up, and went racehorse training.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why racing?<\/p>\n

\u201cI broke in a lot of horses, that\u2019s what I did. I broke in for really good trainers, like Tommy Smith. A guy called Stan Dumbrell, he was a cousin or something to Tommy Smith, and he had all these horses up in Sydney. He bought a property between Junee and Wagga. They got me to break some horses in for them. Tommy bought the horses at the Easter Sales and they sent them down to me to break in\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen they got me to pre-train a few, and then Stan said, I might leave some down here, you should get a trainer\u2019s license. They put in a racetrack on their property, and I was the private trainer. I think I won the premiership the first year\u2026 I was getting difficult horses, bad barrier rogues from all the good trainers, horses that bucked or bolted. It was good then because I was getting good horses that I had to fix up, but I actually got a reputation, of getting bad horses going. I was never getting a good horse. I was getting horses with all these problems, and they are so frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt got too big. Junee is 25 miles from Wagga, and sometimes when we had to gallop them, we\u2019d be taking two truck loads up in the morning. We decided we\u2019d sell our 20 acres at Junee and move to Wagga. I got stables on the course, and we trained for 21 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there were a new players in the McDermott saga, two new faces, their children, Stephanie and Tom. Let their mum, Jenny take up the tale:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we moved to Wagga, we moved to town \u2013 our kids weren\u2019t going to ride horses. Stephanie is 21 now, she is 17 months older than Tom. We bought them a little pony just to have something \u2013 it was tethered down at the stables, and Stephanie would come down sometimes and ride it. Tom really wasn\u2019t interested, he was an outdoors kid, he didn\u2019t want a computer, or Nintendo or anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"McDermott_Kids\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tom, Greg and Stephanie – Winter 1997<\/em><\/p>\n

Conversations with Greg and Jenny tend to shift around, with each one often finishing the other\u2019s sentence, Greg is talking now:<\/p>\n

\u201cStephanie would bring her friends home and go riding ponies, and Tom was left by himself, so he said, \u2018I\u2019m going with them to ride the horses, I\u2019m not going to be left out,\u2019 and that\u2019s what started it. Then we moved out of town, but we wouldn\u2019t get them a pony until they could saddle it themselves and get on it. We weren\u2019t pushy parents and we weren\u2019t into taking them to a show and leading them around. That\u2019s where he started.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cStephanie was quite a good rider \u2013 she was fourth in that FEI World Children\u2019s event \u2013 she was far more polished than Tom at that stage. She was starting to jump 1.30m, but she was studying all week, and Tom was working her horses for her, and she was coming to the show at the weekend. I said, that doesn\u2019t work. Because she was competitive, I said, it is not going to work, you just riding at the weekends, you are going to get cranky because you are not going to be able to go to the show and win. She gave it up, hasn\u2019t been on a horse ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tom started to get serious?<\/p>\n

\u201cTom got very serious. We went to the Australian Championships in Sale, when he was 12. He had only just started riding and he won the Junior Championship, that was basically his first big show. From then on, he has just got stronger and stronger and stronger\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Tom_Wodonga2005\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tom at the Wodonga Showjumping Spectacular 2005<\/em><\/p>\n

You were saying there was a period when you couldn\u2019t teach and you had to get Olivia Bunn to teach him for you\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had plenty of arguments. We don\u2019t have a lot of arguments but even if he wins the Australian Championship, when he comes out the gate, I\u2019ll tell him what I thought of the ride \u2013 and sometimes mother and son don\u2019t like that. That\u2019s just me, I\u2019ve always been like that, and I think that is the only way you can improve. People criticise me for saying to him after he has won a championship \u2013 why did you do six down there when you should have done seven? Deep down he takes it in. He learns to cope a little more now, he just sucks it up, and let\u2019s me say my bit. But we get on really well now, we\u2019ve sort of worked out, how we do the warm-up at the shows, we\u2019ve got it down pretty pat, we\u2019ve got a system and it works.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interestingly, Tom has learnt a lot from Greg\u2019s mentor, George Morris, and once again, Greg appreciates George\u2019s help:<\/p>\n

\u201cGeorge has been very encouraging, he said to us, any time Tom wants to go to America, just ring him, he\u2019ll get him in with Beezie, whoever he wants to go and work with, he\u2019ll get him in. Tom really doesn\u2019t want to do that at the moment. He thinks the German thing is the best way for him to go at the moment. It was a big thing for him not to go to George last time he was in Australia. Don\u2019t get me wrong, Tom learnt heaps from George and really respects him, just at the moment he wants to stick with Gilbert\u2019s [B\u00f6ckmann] system and really get on top of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is more of a family atmosphere at Gilly\u2019s stables and that\u2019s where we want him. And we don\u2019t want him to be used; Tom would happily ride 16-18 horses a day if you let him, so we have to be careful where he goes. You don\u2019t really learn anything doing that. Tom really likes how Marcus Ehning rides, and you think if you get into a stable like that, you are going to learn a lot \u2013 but Marcus is not going to be there from Tuesday through to Sunday, so that is not a lot of use unless they have a really good trainer who stays at home all the time. Gilly came out here in April of last year and Tom went to the clinic, we talked about it, and Tom went over there in May. Everyone said, you won\u2019t get to ride at shows, but Gilly had him at a show the first weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was hard because Gilly\u2019s head rider had been there a fair while, and Gilly wouldn\u2019t let him ride his good horses. Tom was there a week and he was riding the good horses, so there was a real fallout. He thought Tom was going to stay there and take his job. Tom was upset, no one would talk to him. I said, tell them you hate the place and you are not staying\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGilly must have worked it out, because he sent them away to a show together. They had to help each other, and he realised that Tom wasn\u2019t after his job, and turned out to be a nice bloke. Tom qualified three or four horses for the Bundeschampionate, but he had to come home and ride at the Australian Championships.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he was growing up was it a little tough in that Tom was part of that group of young riders, where quite a few of them were riding very fancy imported horses, and Tom was re-cycling the ones you found were too slow?<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah but I think it made him a better rider in the end. He made most of his horses. Lots of times we\u2019d come home from shows when he was younger, and there were tears \u2013 I\u2019m going against Emily, or so and so, and they are riding a million dollar horse, and the one I\u2019m riding cost $200 \u2013 <\/em>but we got around it. He could still be competitive with them. Even now, we can\u2019t afford to go and buy an expensive horse for him; nearly every horse he\u2019s got is a throw away from someone. It\u2019s a bit like I was with the racehorses, once you have the reputation of getting broken-down ones going, you get all the problem ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0The WARM-UPs<\/h2>\n

Sit back and watch the action as Greg helps Tom work in Statford Delight (aka Ricky) and Romantic Dream (aka Pinky) before the Grand Prix of Sydney at SIEC\u2026<\/p>\n

At the Grand Prix of Sydney, Tom rode two very different horses. Statford Delight, better known as Ricky, was purchased from the Butcher twins and when Tom first rode him at Canberra Show, they advised Tom that if the grey took off, he was to stand in the stirrups and should \u2018Whoa Ricky!\u2019 It sort of worked, but in the ensuing years that the horse has been in his stables, Tom has been trying for a somewhat more scientific means of control, with varying degrees of success.<\/p>\n

Tom explains the differences between the two warm-ups:<\/p>\n

\"Ricky\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cObviously Ricky is quite different, everyone knows that. We just try to keep him very quiet in the warm-up. I trot over a few crosses because you can\u2019t canter over crosses with him or he gets strong and boisterous. We also try and make him try a bit harder in the warm-up, to make him think a bit more, lots of low, wide oxers. He is a Daley K, and they can be a little bit slow sometimes. He jumps well in the indoor, it makes him suck back a little bit. Comparing him to Pinky, when I warm her up, you have to buzz her up a lot more than you do Ricky.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe finish off with a little bit taller vertical to make him jump up, so he goes into the ring jumping up a bit, and listening more to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Ricky it is a day-to-day question what bit to use. We have to change the bit every day. At the start of the show we had a curb chain on him and he was really good, but towards the end of the show, he got quite strong and forward, so we thought we might take the curb off in the practice arena and see if that is any better. He was still a little strong, so we put it back on, and it was too much bit, and just before we went into the ring, we took it off. You have to take a gamble with him sometimes, sometimes we even put him in a normal snaffle. I quite like him being a little bit strong. He does his own thing in the ring \u2013 I\u2019ve tried everything under the sun to make him rounder and more rideable but he likes to go his own way. It\u2019s a bit American, but not American, it\u2019s a bit of both, you have to get him slow and together, but you have to let him do his thing with his head sometimes. People ask me, when you are coming to a jump with his head up in the air, what do you do? You can only stick with him and let him do what he can do, because he is super careful and he is scopey enough to help me out every so often.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Pinky\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWith Pinky I just use a snaffle, people say she is hot, quite amazing on the flat, but she is quite sensitive in the mouth. You can\u2019t put anything strong on her, just a simple snaffle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously with Pinky you have to motivate her, she is a bit of a fatty sometimes. You have to make her a bit more buzzy. She jumps a bit better when you make her sharper. You need to get her thinking about the jumps.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do you try to get a rail?<\/p>\n

\u201cNot with Pinky, she\u2019s too careful anyway. We don\u2019t do any wide oxers with her, just try to keep her confident. A lot of people say why don\u2019t we jump her bigger in the warm-up arenas but we know they are all careful horses and we just want to make them as confident as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared in the September 2013 edition of The Horse Magazine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greg and Tom McDermott – the story of this showjumping family continues…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":19780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[907,67,908,367],"class_list":["post-19779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-show-jumping","tag-greg-mcdermott","tag-showjumping","tag-tom-mcdermott","tag-training-showjumpers"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19779"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20594,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19779\/revisions\/20594"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}