{"id":23116,"date":"2015-06-17T14:05:34","date_gmt":"2015-06-17T04:05:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/?p=23116"},"modified":"2017-02-10T11:07:16","modified_gmt":"2017-02-10T00:07:16","slug":"sydney-three-day-event-mike-etherington-smith-stuart-tinney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/2015\/06\/sydney-three-day-event-mike-etherington-smith-stuart-tinney\/","title":{"rendered":"Sydney Three Day Event: Mike Etherington Smith & Stuart Tinney"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"PortMikeES\"<\/a>TALKING WITH MIKE ETHERINGTON SMITH<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Michael Etherington Smith is the world\u2019s greatest course designer, he has that magic touch of creating tracks that let the best-of-the-best rise to the top, while at the same time taking care of the less experienced combinations in the field. Mike ES has been working on the Sydney course for the last couple of years having been the designer who put it in place at the beginning for the Sydney Olympic Games. As usual, he has a clear vision of where he is going:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year to be honest, we ended up on Plan B, which sort of slightly upset the balance of the track and softened it a bit, but at least we had a competition which was the most important thing. What I am trying to do over a period of time is create versatility so that course designers here can have lots of options and flexibility as to where to take the course. So bit-by-bit we are creating some new lines, new routes. We used the inside of the steeplechase course \u2013 it took about ten months of working on permissions to do it! \u2013 and we can now join one side of the park to the other by going through the steeplechase course.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI did some plans last year, on how to join up the park, and as the budget allows it, that\u2019s the plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Were you surprised how well the ground stood up to the weather this year?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cNot really, I knew how it was prepared for the Games. I was quietly confident during the week. Sure there are wet spots and soft spots, but we moved the fences on to essentially dry land, the best possible ground we could find. You watched the horses traveling, they weren\u2019t getting stuck in it, the horses were coming out of it well. I suppose the challenge here is that the horses aren\u2019t used to that sort of ground, but they soon adapted and most coped really really well. One or two struggled a bit, whether that was the ground or they were just a bit green\u2026 but watching the horses traveling down the hills, they weren\u2019t backing off, they were running down the hills as you would expect them to. I wasn\u2019t surprised how it held up, I wouldn\u2019t have wanted to put three times the number of horses around it though, to be honest. If we\u2019d had eighty in the class it would have been busier.\u201d<\/p>\n

I guess you\u2019ve read Jim Wofford\u2019s piece on the web, I would particularly like your comments on his suggestion that the modern courses have so many fences that require precise jumping that the riders are slowing down to take those lines and then have to travel way too fast to make up time and that is leading to problems on \u2018easy\u2019 fences\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWof is a really good guy, a real thinker, and I have a huge amount of respect for him \u2013 he\u2019s a good mate as well. He is a real observer and there is a lot in what he says. We\u2019ve been talking about it for a while, you\u2019ve got to be very careful: the standard in the dressage and showjumping gets much higher, but what you must be mindful of, is that while they get higher, the focus doesn\u2019t solely rest on the dressage and jumping, because the horses have to find a fifth leg for the cross country, and if they are waiting for instruction all the time, it\u2019s not good. You get on a cross country course, riders make mistakes, horses make mistakes, they have to be able to work it out for themselves. It\u2019s no good them waiting for an instruction from the riders.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things we are mindful of, is that we want to encourage people to go and practice their cross country. The top guys do practice their cross country, they get out on the grass so the horses know where their feet are, and they understand that it is not always perfect ground. I think what Wof has said is absolutely right, the style of cross-country courses has changed, but the sport has changed. We don\u2019t have roads and tracks and steeplechase, so the endurance element has disappeared.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause the standard has grown, big, straightforward, run-and-jump fences on their own, don\u2019t separate out those that are right on the top of the sport from those on the way up. It is getting harder for course designers to put the emphasis on the cross-country course in a fair way. You can be unfair, which is not pretty, you can over-do the accuracies and the corners, but there is a balance in there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019ve got to do is get people used to jumping the sort of questions they are going to find at the higher level when they are competing at the lower levels. Managing speed is part of that balance, course designers can only do so much. As a course designer you want to allow the horse and the rider to settle into a rhythm, grow in confidence and benefit from the experience. You don\u2019t want to mess them around, and you don\u2019t want interruptions on a course, it must flow. Okay there are going to be gear changes but you don\u2019t want the horses having to go from nothing on a regular basis because that is physically tiring.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou also want to be very conscious of the mental effect of the course and its impact. If you look at Badminton last year, many of the fences were absolutely fine, one or two that caught Giuseppe Della Chiesa (course designer) out, but the overall package was too much mentally \u2013 too many gear changes, too many interruptions. There is no easy solution to the point that Jimmy has highlighted. Each course designer has his own signature, but you want riders to be able to keep traveling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe put a speed gun on some horses in California a few years ago, 800 metres a minute, and you think, bloody hell! A lot of those guys are \u2013 I\u2019m not going to say uneducated, but they have missed the point of getting into a rhythm and staying in that rhythm and allowing the horses to just run and jump the fences. You look at the really good guys in the sport, they are into that rhythm. There is no slowing down before the fence, they let the horses jump out of a rhythm and they maintain the average speed.
\nThey don\u2019t have to do these ludicrous speeds in between the fences to try and get the time. Sprinting from one sequence of fences to another is just not pretty and it is not what we as course designers want\u00a0to\u00a0do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to achieve a balance and a flow to the course that allows riders to get into that groove and stay in it. Watch the good guys, they are in that groove, and they waste no time going into the fences or getting away from them, and they are not going fast, they are within their comfort zone. We can only do so much as course designers, we must be very mindful of the product we are putting out there, but equally riders must be sure that they have the skills they need to emulate the top riders.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a coach and I wouldn\u2019t pretend to know how to get that into the riders, but it is a balance and we all have a responsibility in this. I think Jimmy has highlighted a really topical issue, and he articulated it so well. I didn\u2019t agree with everything in there, but the point that jumped off the page to me was the bit about horses have to be able to think for themselves and not just wait for decisions from the riders. They have to be able to work things out for themselves when a rider makes a mistake, or when they make a mistake because horses make mistakes as well\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Or when the course designer makes a mistake\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cCourse designers make mistakes all the time. We all make mistakes, but we can work together to get the balance right. I love talking to Jimmy, he\u2019s a real thinker, and is very articulate. When Jimmy says something you take note of it, you might not agree, but you sit up, because he doesn\u2019t put pen to paper without really really thinking about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"PortStuartTinney\"<\/a>Stuart Tinney continues to develop his role as a course builder, sitting out this year\u2019s Sydney Three Day to concentrate on his one-star and two-star courses, what did he set out to achieve?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI think what I try to do, certainly with the one-star, but also with the two-star, is remember you are still training the horses at that level. At three-star, you are starting to test them\u2026 I think with educating one-star horses, you have got to start introducing them to what they are going to see. You start with accuracy questions, arrowheads, apexes \u2013 I try to help them by framing the jumps, to encourage them to jump and not run out. I\u2019m trying to help them learn, but I also don\u2019t want to make it that easy that everyone jumps around clear. You want to test them slightly, but be encouraging and teaching. It is a bit the same with the two-star, it gets a little tougher, I make the lines and angles harder but I am still encouraging them to jump, not teaching them to run out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s my philosophy on those lower grades, and then when you get to three-star, four-star, you are testing the training, the horse\u2019s education and honesty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Was it much harder as the weather deteriorated\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe big thing about Sydney with the terrain and the hills is that it is a tough enough course anyway, as soon as you add the going \u2013 which was actually incredibly good for the amount of rain we\u2019ve had, and that\u2019s the wonderful thing about this venue, that we could still run the event and still have a successful event even with the most rain in the history of Sydney\u2026 I think that added to the course, the horses were quite tired, especially in the CCI classes. What we want to try to do here is actually change the tracks around and get it more flowing and not so hilly. I think we can do that and make it a bit nicer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be honest I was really happy with how the riders rode, they did a great job, they rode to the conditions, all the horses pulled up well.\u201d<\/p>\n

You did the test ride on War Hawk, and had the best score, are you sorry you didn\u2019t give him a run?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cHe is headed for his first three star CCI and because of the terrain here, he\u2019ll go to Melbourne for the first one. But in the days before the event, I was a bit disappointed I hadn\u2019t entered him, but it would have been tough for him with the terrain and the going. Still it\u2019s a lovely track that Mike ES has built.\u201d<\/p>\n

You must have been pleased with your pupil Makayla Wood having such a great cross country run\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cShe was super, I saw her around the cross country at quite a few spots and she looked really good \u2013 Thoroughbred mare, she just galloped gorgeous. I\u2019m not surprised, I was hoping she would go like that and not surprised she did.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you are interested in Eventing, there are lots more articles on this site – just click ‘eventing’ at the top of this page…<\/p>\n

Tinney, Stuart<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n