{"id":19837,"date":"2015-01-04T13:40:34","date_gmt":"2015-01-04T02:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/?p=19837"},"modified":"2015-01-22T07:08:31","modified_gmt":"2015-01-21T20:08:31","slug":"lyndal-oatley-on-the-way-to-caen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/2015\/01\/lyndal-oatley-on-the-way-to-caen\/","title":{"rendered":"Lyndal Oatley on the way to Caen"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"LyndalSandroBoy7\"<\/a><\/p>\n

An interview with Chris Hector<\/p>\n

Lyndal Oatley lead the way in the selection event for the Australian WEG team, winning Grand Prix of Deauville, which was for a great Australian dressage, a great step ahead. I caught up with her next morning\u2026<\/p>\n

Nice day at the office?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHappy day at the office, can\u2019t complain, it felt really good \u2013 a great day for all the Aussies, except for poor Briana, but we had a good day yesterday. Super happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

I guess we have all been talking a lot about the selection process, and what we can do to improve it. I think it has been much easier to follow this time without so much subjective influence, but it does still seem hard on the horses, all the travel they have had to do?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely been a step forward this selection system, it\u2019s more clear, it\u2019s more defined, it gives the Aussies at home a chance to come over and be really prepared. It has served its purpose, everyone knows where they stand \u2013 it\u2019s clear cut so we as riders feel reassured, and everyone at home can follow it. But in the future it would be good not to have to travel so far. It\u2019s been hard on the horses, we\u2019ve done a couple of ten hour trips close together and that is hard this close to the WEG. But the question is how do you find shows that will fit eight riders in? That\u2019s the hard bit, and I think EA has coped with it as best they can but I think there are ways to improve it. I\u2019d really like to see your average scores over the period of time count for more as a way of ensuring consistency, I\u2019d also like the opportunity to ride in the bigger shows closer to WEG so we are in the atmosphere that we are going to find at the WEG.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ton de Ridder has suggested that the best selection would be just one selection trial at Aachen, where we can really see how the riders handle pressure\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know, we all love Aachen, it\u2019s a good lead up and most of the top nations are there, but then again, it\u2019s hard to get eight people in\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

But there never were eight\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThey wanted eight, and then there were seven, once you\u2019ve made a program it\u2019s hard to change it, they wanted eight, and we had eight spots at Deauville and there\u2019s no confusion. Okay now we are down to four, but that is life, that is what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

But we could get six into Aachen\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s true.\u201d<\/p>\n

And we could have had a qualification in the lead up to that \u2013 average of four CDIs or whatever \u2013 to decide the six that get to go to Aachen\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cFor sure, and if the Federation is open to that, I think it would be a great step forward, and that\u2019s what I\u2019d like to do as a rider, that would be a great preparation for a WEG or a Games, and maybe that\u2019s what the Federation takes from this experience \u2013 but they\u2019ve done the best job they could, and they have stuck to their program and hats off to that, because at least we know where we all stand.\u201d<\/p>\n

How do you grow dressage in Australia when more and more riders like you are based in Europe and it is harder and harder for the Australian based riders to get into a team?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI think it is really important that as riders over here, we give back. That\u2019s where I am starting to get more confidence in doing clinics and helping riders when I come back home, and maybe Patrik can be involved in that too. Patrik has been helping quite a few Australians and he really gets how we think and how we ride. It would be fantastic if we could get him over to do clinics with the riders at home in a bit of a system, to encourage them to get better and have more influence from the outside, in. It\u2019s important to encourage the riders at home and let them know what they can achieve, but one of the biggest things I\u2019ve learnt is the importance of sponsors. We have some great people in Australia who would be more than willing to help everybody, if we have an environment that is productive and heading in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this weekend has been massive for that and hopefully sponsors and companies in Australia see that we are getting better. We are doing a good job, and we are working as a unified team and maybe we can take advantage of that and get some funding back into the sport and encourage riders to come over here and get the experience that they need. So they learn to ride in atmospheres that are bigger, atmospheres that we don\u2019t get at home \u2013 but then enable them to go home so their businesses are stable, so they don\u2019t lose everything at home. I think that is the hardest thing for the riders based at home, you see it every year, the sacrifices those riders have to make to come over and do these qualifying events. We have to work out a system that protects those talented riders and gives them the support they need to come over here and get the experience and learn, then go back and bring it home. That is so important.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always thought it\u2019s crazy for our federation to name \u2018the coach\u2019 to fit all the riders \u2013 we see here, Maree working with Mr Koschel, and Mary and you with Patrik, and Kristy with Sjef, and all those coaches work with their riders, the riders find the coach that works for them\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s right, I think we have a good system at the moment, the riders are drawn to the coaches that work for them, but also with Ton it is great, because he has a finger in all the pies, he knows how the system works, and he is a great backup coach, he gives you ideas, he really throws a bit of polish on the whole operation. Particularly for me, I work with my husband and it is good to have an external eye, he has a lot to offer because he is a very clever man. We need to get him to Australia too.\u201d<\/p>\n

How does it feel, just a couple of weeks to the WEG?<\/em><\/p>\n

Lyndal is laughing: \u201cIt\u2019s come around quick hasn\u2019t it? It\u2019s crazy. I\u2019m good. I take each day as it comes, I\u2019m pretty laid back, I\u2019m looking forward to it, I just want to get there. We are going to have so many Aussies there. It\u2019s like yesterday at the Grand Prix presentation when you hear the Australian anthem and you can hear people in the crowd singing it, I burst into tears, you don\u2019t get that support over here, that\u2019s one thing the Euro based riders really miss. So things like facebook are our link back to feeling everybody\u2019s excitement, and feeling everyone is part of the journey. Yesterday was awesome, and if that\u2019s only a little scratch on what it is going to be like at the WEG, I can\u2019t wait, it\u2019s going to be great fun.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

German based Australian dressage rider, Lyndal Oatley talks about the pressures in the run up to the WEG 2014\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":19841,"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":[4],"tags":[1243,474],"class_list":["post-19837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dressage","tag-dressage","tag-lyndal-oatley"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19837","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=19837"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19876,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19837\/revisions\/19876"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}