Catching up with Caitlin at Bromont

By Samantha L Clark on

Caitlin has come up to Bromont with one of Boyd's horses in the CCI* while he's off games with his dicky ankle, and we took the opportunity to catch up .....

 

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Thank you so much for chatting Caitlin, and best of luck this weekend. Keep in touch, and go eventing!

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Allie Conrad — OTTB Angel

By Samantha L Clark on

Parklane Hawk (OTTB) winning the 2012 Rolex Kentucky CCI****.

(All pictures kindly supplied by Allie Conrad and used with her permission with thanks)

 

Like me you may recognize Allie Conrad's name as the author of some great articles in the the Chronicle of the Horse, documenting the OTTB at Rolex for instance, or her struggle to retrain a particular horse. Since reading them, I've been lucky enough to meet Allie at several events (we're usually admiring the same horses too!) and this week I spoke to her about her love for the OTTB and her mission at CANTER Mid-Atlantic for the Eventing Radio Show. Dedicated and driven, passionate and smart but still down to earth and a pleasure to talk to, you can hear our entire conversation on the podcast this week.

It all started when Allie was in her early 20s and her current horse had gone lame. After a little research on the internet where she learned about the New Holland Sales, she saved up a whopping $500, borrowed a trailer and set out, determined to make a difference. "I bought this mess of an animal, but I wanted to bring him home and save his life. The horse I picked up at New Holland is my lifeblood; I still own him. He's 22 now and shuffling around a bit. I built my barn for him, I built my farm for him, and he's the love of my life. He changed my life. He's a bit of an ass, but he can do no wrong. I let him get away with just about everything. His racing name was Clever Ma, so all the horses here that I've bred have been named after him. My farm (Clever Covert Farm) is named after him ... he's like my legacy!"

In the beginning though, Clever Ma's future was still uncertain. Allie detailed her doubts that he might not even be sound — "He had lymphangitis in all four legs and a huge knee!" — but to her surprise and joy, she discovered he had the most beautiful, swinging and sound trot on turning him out in a round pen on arrival at her farm. "He and I did just about everything together. He stayed very sound until just about a year ago, and then his hard life began to catch up with him. But he evented, we did the jumpers, we hunted all over the place, he did hunters, we did hunter paces, we did everything. He was my everything horse and just the absolute horsey love of my life. He's why CANTER Mid-Atlantic exists, and he's saved a lot of horses. I tell him all the time; his ego is huge!"

 

Clever Ma had come with his papers, so Allie was able to find out a little bit about his background. "I ended up tracking down his old owners, and they were trainers at Charles Town; they had bred and raised this horse, held him in their laps when he was born and when I told them what had happened I just heard silence and then bawling crying. They were so upset."

Unintentionally, Clever Ma's breeders had sent all their horses to the killer buyer having been promised that he would find them a good home. "This guy had them completely fooled, and so all 10 of the horses that they had sent him had been slaughtered and they were dealing with the realization of that. Thank God this one was saved, but it was at that moment that I decided to help both the Thoroughbreds coming off the track, but also people like them who wanted to do the right thing." Thus CANTER Mid Atlantic was born about a dozen years ago, the second CANTER program in the U.S.

"The more I got into it, the more I just realized they're just the coolest animals. They're thankful; they try hard. The only thing that stands in their way is soundness when they're not cared for on the track, and that's another battle I've been fighting: to try and get them cared for better, to change the drug rules and to change their future so they aren't raced past their ability to have a second career."

Doug Payne and Running Order at the Rolex Kentucky CCI**** last year

 

Allie is approaching her fourth decade, which means she has volumes of experience and can speak with some authority on how things are different and how much they have improved for the better since those early days. "Being involved in this for so long has given me a certain perspective, and what's really cool is the change in attitude at the tracks. When I first started and went into Charles Town or other tracks, nobody would talk to us, or they would actually kick us out of the barns. I just kept going back and the more I went back, eventually they began to give me the time of day."

The first time Allie took a horse for a trainer and sold it via CANTER Mid-Atlantic within a day, "It spread like wildfire. The biggest change was that instead of running their horse in those last few races knowing they didn't have a chance but might bring home a little bit of a check, even $100 or $200, those people don't do that anymore. They list them on CANTER where they might sell them for $1,000 instead of risking one last run and possibly their horse breaking down completely. That's been the biggest change, and I think that is influencing the track in a very big way."

Unbelievably, Allie combines her work at CANTER Mid-Atlantic with a career in project management for a software development firm that essentially manages contracts for the government. "The technical term for that is NERD! The CANTER stuff is all just a labour of love. We all do it as volunteers. On a slow week, it's about 30 hours a week. On other weeks, it can be upwards of 50 or 60, depending on how many abcesses we have — literally!"

Will Faudree and Andromaque at the 2012 Land Rover Burghley Horse Trials CCI****

 

In any given week, there will be three or four CANTER Mid-Atlantic volunteers visiting the half a dozen or so tracks in the area that weekend. "We've been very lucky that we've been able to grow an awesome group of volunteers." Depending on the funding level at the time, if people are in a situation where they need to get rid of a horse immediately, then CANTER Mid-Atlantic will take them as donations. Once again, depending on funds, CANTER Mid-Atlantic takes in anywhere from 60 to a 100 horses a year; those horses will be turned out for three to six months depending on what they need, then re-trained and re-homed.

The extensive retraining is what probably stands CANTER Mid-Atlantic apart from a lot of other OTTB programs. "You can't truly evaluate a horse in one or two rides; you can only evaluate those two rides. We started insisting on 30 to 60 days of re-training so that we could really go about re-training and evaluating them in a very thorough, systematic way. Our success rate in placing them in new homes is at about 99 percent. I think we've had two horses come back ever that were not the right match."

Obviously this makes the process extremely costly. "It's much more expensive, but our service has to be to the horses and not the bank account, and we're not doing the horses the right service if we're placing them in a home that has unrealistic expectations of them, both mentally or soundness wise. We are extremely transparent in our re-training process. We write extensive blogs about each horse, and we document everything. I call it 'The Good, The Bad, The Ugly and The Really Ugly!'"

Funded by donations and grants — a very generous grant from ASPCA enabled them to double their efforts — most of their funding comes from donations and the sale price of the nicer horses, although "for every horse we sell for $3,000 or $4,000 or sometimes even $5,000 if it's been to a few shows, we'll probably give 10 away for a dollar or a couple hundred."

At Southern Pines, CANTER gave an award for the highest placed Jockey Club registered TB, and for the last three years they've also highlighted and rewarded the best placed OTTB at the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event. Allie started that award after being told by someone at Rolex who should have known better that she might be disappointed to find that there just weren't any OTTBs at the the top of the sport, and oh, has Allie proved her wrong!

 

Michael Pollard and Wonderful Will

Allie also enjoys going to events as much as time allows to take pictures of the OTTBs competing and to highlight how prolific they are at every level. "The thing that they have at the end of the day that other horses don't is more heart than anything. In my opinion, that's what wins in eventing. You can have a 10 trot all day long, but the fact is you have to go cross country and you have to be sound on the third day, and I think that's what they're good for."

You can hear Allie's entire conversation on the Eventing Radio Show this week, and please be sure to check out the CANTER Mid-Atlantic website. Thank you for reading, and thank you to Allie for chatting but especially for all her great work to help the OTTB. Go CANTER Mid-Atlantic and Go OTTBs Eventing!

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The Training Diaries with Allie Knowles: Florida, Fitness and Feeding

By Samantha L Clark on

Komik on her way to a clear xc at her first prelim at Rocking Horse Winter II

It's been far too long since we caught up with Allie Knowles and her two, now six-year-old mares Komik and Roxy. Since our last installment Allie has spent a couple of weeks down in Ocala training with Buck Davidson, and competed at the Ocala Horse Park and Rocking Horse Winter II. There's almost too much to catch up on in one go, so I visited her barn on a blustery day and watched her do some fittening work with both horses before we had a brief chat, and promised to catch up again and get more competition footage at Southern Pines.

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The horses going up the hill.

Allie mentioned that it's been a huge adjustment moving from California to Kentucky and getting used to the tracks over here, the weather and consequently making allowances for the footing, and also taking her mares' temperaments into account as she gets them fit for competitions.

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My greedy gannet of a black labrador (four-legged rubbish bin) can attest to how delicious the Triple Crown feed is as you can see him in the background of the video hoovering up every last crumb from the ground, I can't watch that clip now without wanting to throttle him! Allie and I are both refreshingly ignorant geography-wise but we reckon it's about nine hours drive or so to Southern Pines from Kentucky and she'll be taking a full trailer load, with Last Call running in the Advanced and Juicy Couture in the Open Intermediate. If you have any particular training questions you'd like Allie to tackle please leave them in the comments section below, and we'd be happy to address them in the next edition. Thank you of course to Allie, and thank you as always for reading. Go Allie and Go Eventing!

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Peter Atkins Update

By Samantha L Clark on

Eventing Nation just spoke exclusively to Peter Atkins from a hospital in Westchester County in New York where he awaits surgery on his broken leg, "I broke the bottom off the tibia and the fibia, so they have to pin and plate it to get it all back together".  In a cruel twist of appalling timing, a delayed, and then cancelled flight meant that had Peter, Henny and Firedrake, his Badminton entry, and his exciting young horse, all left for England on their originally scheduled flight on 2am monday morning, they would have been safely en route to London at the time of the accident, and be settling in to English digs as I write this.

In another almost unbelievable case of terrible timing, this is first instance that Peter has ever broken a bone in his life.  In his third attempt to make it to Badminton, the two previous times something went wrong with his horses, and now having come so close this time, he told me he's heartbroken, and incredulous, but keeps telling himself that thank God it's him and not Henry,

"Henny's good, he's fine. He was looking at me laying on the ground, and wondering what the hell had happened and what he could do to help. I've never fallen off him, and this was just a stupid, stupid accident. I'm still not sure what he shied at, and how he hooked a back foot in the rock wall and got tangled up, and the next thing I knew he was on top of me."

Peter said the doctors and nurses were well impressed with his home made cast, and it sounds like he's bearing up stoically, in fact it sounds like he's being a true Aussie-stye hero!

"It got a little shaky there for a while, and they put a temporary cast on. The inflammation caused some pain so they gave me some morphine and we'll see how that goes. I work with horses, I'm used to it. Your feet get trodden on, I get kicked and knocked around all the time so it doesn't bother me."

With classic Peter Atkins understatement, he explains that he can't make any major decisions or go anywhere for the next couple of days, "At some stage a bit of bone poked out and it became compound, so I have to be here for 48 hours for the antibiotics and to make sure there's no infection".

 The plan going forward depends a lot on how the surgery goes this afternoon, "Of course I'd like to say I'll be back riding in three or four weeks - the doctors say six weeks but I don't believe them, and I'd like to go to Luhmuhlen, but I can't plan on that yet until I know how I'm feeling in the next few days."

Luckily, Henny and Firedrake are at a lovely facility in New York, "it's a wonderful place, it's got a really good feeling, really good management so he's happy there."  Having just shipped to New York from Ocala on Friday Peter is reluctant to move Henny yet. Peter's first choice to ride Henny while he himself is out of commission would be Dressage rider (and one time eventer) Jim Koford, based in Wellington, Florida, who's been helping Peter a lot this winter, "He's not that easy to ride, so that's my biggest concern".

Both Peter and Henny are already qualified to ride at the London 2012 Olympics, now they face a race against time for Peter to heal in time to compete at Luhmuhlen and sufficiently impress the selectors to make the team, "the only chance I have is Luhmuhlen, presuming I can actually get there. If I can keep him in training, get there and have a good run at Luhmuhlen then that's my only hope, but it's still not Badminton.  Not a very happy day."

Eventing nation would like to send Peter, and all his connections very best wishes for a fast recovery and the very best of luck going forward. We will continue to keep you updated on all the Run Henny Run news, and hope the surgery goes well. When I asked Peter if there was anything at all we could do to help, I could practically hear him shrugging in his hospital bed, "Get me a new leg?!? " Go and get better as fast as you can, and Go Eventing!

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Taking Stock with David Ingordo – Part 1

By Samantha L Clark on
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Although the Keeneland September Yearling Sale began a fortnight ago, it's hardly surprising that David Ingordo, one of the most sought after and successful bloodstock agents in the business has not had time to see me until the penultimate day. Traditionally the latter days of the Sale are quiet, the emptier barns and seats reflecting the dip in quality and price of stock as the sale days go by, but today there's still a healthy buzz which bodes well for the business, as David explains,

"It's been a little bit of a pleasant surprise, but I think people want horses. I thought it would be a good sale, and I'm glad that the actual market followed through. I'm not sure if you can attribute it to the tax break this year or not, but people love this industry. We're already seeing the effects of less foals being born which isn't necessarily a bad thing; the proportion of the bad horses you lose is greater, but you do lose some of the quality too; you lose some from both ends of the spectrum. Just the fact that this sale is a day shorter this year as well, means that 600 or so lesser horses don't come to market, or don't get produced in the first place so those are all positives."
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David estimates he's probably looked at hundreds of thousands of horses already in his lifetime, whether at Sales, on the track, or on farms, so I ask him how he evaluates them when looking to buy,
"Every horse is an individual; there are positives and negatives to each one. I'm not looking to criticize every horse, but at some price points a lot of horses have value, so it's just a matter of deciding if they have value to me or my clients, or not. 
You can't put the saddle and bridle on a pedigree page, so the first thing I look at is the physical aspect. If the horse isn't an athlete first and foremost then I'm not interested at any price, no matter what the pedigree. The second part is the pedigree though, and I'll try to get as much as I can. 
 I look at a lot of horses, some of them I might not like and the guy next to me might - it doesn't mean I'm right and he's wrong or vice versa, but the horsemanship side comes into it - like a photographer, painter or chef.  There's a little bit of an art that goes into this. There's the nuts and bolts - is he correct? From the side, what's his confirmation? Does he walk well? Are his feet good? Then there's the extra ten percent that I say is horsemanship and being around horses a lot.  
X-ray's and scopes are very important, they're general tools to help you with the horse's health but we've refined the process enough now that they're fairly accurate. On the throat I'm pretty critical, but on the x-rays I'm very forgiving; if the horse is sound and looks okay, and the limbs are clean and the joints are tight, I'm a lot more forgiving than most people are."
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I admit I can't pick a winner at the races to save my life, but David might have better luck spotting potential sport horses; we look at a few horses together and I'm glad to report we agree on a couple of points - neither of us are keen on white feet giving them a "yellow, buttery look", and we're both partial to a "beautiful-bodied" chestnut, although David puts the kibosh on her, "her body would have caught my eye, but no foot no horse". When I remark that another horse might be a tiny bit short in the neck for me, David says he "could do that on a Storm Cat" - touche! Although my favourite comment and one that I might have to steal, "that one looks like a jelly bean on legs"!
 David has been extremely active at this sale, spending millions of dollars on behalf of his clients and buying more than several dozen horses, but there were still horses he wanted that he didn't manage to buy, and this rankles his competitive nature,
"I've been bidding for some very wealthy people, but at a certain stage you just have to say we've gone far enough and we'll find another one. Being the underbidder is kind of like being second, and I don't want to be second. If I don't get the horse, I'm upset, but good luck to the guy who did."
This is partly what drives David to be out here every single day, that and the fact that he genuinely loves and thrives on his work, 
"We work all the way to the end, we're always looking because you never know what horse is going to come up."
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David has been out at Keeneland every morning all day every day beginning at 7am since the Friday before the September Sales started;  on saturday night two weeks later when it's all over he tells me he'll probably fall into bed, but on monday morning he'll start organising the payment and transport of his purchases. Most of the horses he's bought will go down to his training center in Ocala for the winter before shipping out to trainers in the spring. David and his team will make physical notes on the horses, gather up the pedigrees and enter everything into their inventory, before the next Sale, the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale. For David, there's no break,
"I buy a lot of weanlings. I'm one of the bigger weanling pinhookers. I don't spend a lot of money but I've had a good year. You have to be able to project, and I've got a pretty good idea of what a foal will turn into. Every time I look at a horse I want to see something I can improve; even if it's a million dollar horse it has to improve." 
David, although still young to be so established in the business, is old school in many ways. He refuses to carry an Ipad like so many of his colleagues do, ("I like the physical book, I bend it, we're outside, we're in the rain and snow,  I drop it -  if I drop that Ipad, there goes the whole Sale!") but makes notes in his catalogues, 
"Very simple; Usually I circle their name on the page, then an x if I don't like them, a check if I do, and the best thing I give is a star! There's a comment on this page, 'ok body/ok confirmation'. I'm not trying to dazzle anybody, it works for me.  I have a little book that my assistant makes for me that I keep inside the catalogue of horses that I'm interested in to follow each day. We run a very successful operation on a few pieces of paper." Indeed! 
Many thanks to David for sparing me time out of his hectic schedule to share some of the secrets of his genius with us. Check back in a few days for Part 2 of my interview at Lane's End Farm, where he shows me a couple of his September Sale purchases and explains in more detail what attracted him to them. Go Thoroughbreds, racing or eventing! 
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Alex Van Tuyll – Never a Dull Moment!

By Samantha L Clark on
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Alex with Tamarillo

After a decade working for William Fox-Pitt, arguably the most successful eventer in recent times, Alex Van Tuyll has struck out on her own and has been working as a freelance groom for almost three years.  As is so often the case in life, especially with people at the top of their game, Alex's career path wasn't so much a chosen one, as much as it seemed to just happen to her. Living close to William when he was based in Oxfordshire, and eventing herself led to lessons with William, which led to her helping out at weekends, then meeting him at the gallops to ride, and eventually a job for a year, which turned into running the yard with head girl Jackie Potts for nine more...!

Somehow Alex found a spare half hour in her manic schedule* to chat with me from her base down in Dorset, for which I'm extremely grateful, and explain how she manages her life.  (*manic schedule = "I'm going up to Duarte Seabra's in Cheshire tomorrow to clip, pull manes and tails, go galloping, and then we're eventing friday, saturday and sunday, three days, three different venues, then I go to Sally Johnson's just outside Lambourn and I'm driving her and her two horses to Lignieres in France on Monday to do the one star.")  Being a freelance groom means being incredibly busy, organised, and lots of travel,
"I do it because I enjoy it. I could give this up and get a "proper job" but I'd miss being outside and I'd miss doing the horses, and the satisfaction of seeing them going well. I do a lot now for Duarte Seabra, the Portugese rider.  I came to WEG with him last year, and any time he goes eventing, even one days, I go with him and try and fit in other people around that.  Duarte's based with Catherine Witt up in Cheshire, so Catherine and I sat down with the diary at the beginning of the year and decided which events we wanted to go to. Of course, nearer the time it sometimes changes, but I'm lucky in that I usually have a waiting list of  people calling me up wanting me to work for them if I'm not busy with Duarte. I have a group of about 8 to 10 people that I work for regularly; for example next week I'm going to Les Lignieres, then I'm at Osberton, then Pau then Le Lion D'Angers."
The last four events Alex just mentioned are all three day events, "I live out of my suitcase", she laughs, but when not working mid-week one day events and eventing on weekends, she enjoys hunting on Mondays and Tuesdays with her local pack, the Blackmore and Sparkford Vale. Alex keeps four horses at home to feed her habit, including one rather special ex-eventer who just started a hunting career this year,
"I LOVED Idalgo, and of course he's now retired and his owners, the Apters, have very kindly given him to me, so he's residing in my yard at the moment. He'd never seen hounds until about a month ago, and he's now done nine days cubbing. He's been amazing, really good. Everyone wants to follow me over the hedges! He's great - he loves it and he's taken to it really well, so I'm a very, very lucky girl!"
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Alex on her smart new hunter, Idalgo (chesutnut in the middle) - 2nd at Badminton & 4th at the European Championships at Fontainebleu in 2009 with William Fox-Pitt
When I remark that the hunting alone, which she does for fun sounds like a full time job, (four horses up and hunting fit all winter) and I ask her what she does to relax, Alex laughs, 
"Relax? Errr...?! I'm not very good at staying still. Cooking?  I do cooking locally for various people, freezer filling, chutnies and things like that. This winter I'm hoping to get a break; last winter I did the Asian Games for the first time and I loved it. I wanted to come to the PanAms this year but it starts while I'm still at Le Lion d'Angers so sadly I can't do it.  I like to catch up with my friends in the winter because I don't see them all summer."
Alex says she notices more people going down the freelance route now, and more demand for it, especially at three day events, from either the one horse rider, or one groom competitor who needs to leave a groom at home to look after the horses left behind. Alex requests food at an event, and a "dry place to sleep".  She usually brings her own duvet and pillow, "just because I like it", and is happy to sleep in the lorry on site as is customary in the UK. 
"It is a lot of fun, but when I first started free-lance there were quite a few people who expected that because I'd been with William for ten years, that as soon as I came to brush their horse or tack it up or anything like that, then their marks were immediately going to improve tenfold and they were going to start winning!  People just expected because I was there I was going to perform miracles and I wanted to tell them that no, they still had to learn their dressage test, and they still had to ride their horses! I will help with fitting tack, and warm-up techniques and advise them with things like that to help them as much as possible with their overall performance but I try and follow the normal routine as much as possible."
Alex will also watch Duarte's lessons on the flat this week with Pammy Hutton so that she'll be able to give him some insights from the ground when he warms up for the dressage at the three day events later this season.  As well as her vast experience with varying horses, Alex has probably been to more competitions than most of us spend in dollars on vets, blacksmiths, entry fees and petrol - ie masses, and enjoys each for it's separate quirks,
"I went to Malmo in Sweden years ago with William and Ballincoola; we had temporary stables in the airport in a hangar on the edge of an airfield. We had to walk our horses through the town, through the traffic lights, over the mini-roundabouts, got on to the venue, and then sit there all day dreading the way back again, but I'm thrilled I went. The Test Event in Greenwich this summer was awesome; it's going to be an incredible event, I'm just sad there'll be no physical legacy left behind. To see all those school kids shouting "horsey horsey horsey" on cross-country day, and seeing their faces light up was really amazing.  I think it's going to be an awesome experience."
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Burghley has always been a happy hunting ground for Alex, having won there several times with William's horses, and it was the first three day she ever groomed at, age 16. If pushed, she would say it was her favourite three day event.  She returned last year with the youngest rider Laura Collett and Ginger May Killinghurst, and came back this year with Tom McEwan, also the youngest rider, and took home the 'Mountain Horse' Horse Care Prize. Polly Lochore judged the groom's competition at Burghley on the overall presentation and well-being of the horse throughout the competition,
"I've been a runner-up there once before, and I also won the equivalent at Rolex the first year I came there; it's a huge honour when you're there among your contemporaries and you're judged to be the best."
Burgie, Britain's northern most three day event was the first three day event Alex competed in herself, and she likes Bramham for the social scene, but she told me she really enjoys the experience at all the different three days,
"I suppose I'm trying to get the opportunity to go everywhere before I hang up my boots. The freelance work suits me now for where I am but I miss the continuity of the horses in work, and the little niggles, and even the  looking out for the things that can go wrong with them. However now I've got a bit more flexibility to do a few other things that I want to, because I don't envisage doing this when I'm forty. I want to go on and do something else, and now I have the opportunity to meet other people; for the last six years I've helped in the Press Office at Olympia, in charge of the awards and rosettes, just to get the opportunity to do as much as I can. I haven't got a clue what I will do eventually, but it will be equine based."
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Alex at Burghley, her favourite event, with Balincoola, Burghley winner and one of her all-time favourite horses. 
Although she described 'Max' as very tricky, she said she always had a real soft spot for him; "I started when he arrived and when William first bought him Judy and Jeremy Skinner hadn't even seen him, and I remember Judy's words, 'Oh My God, that ugly duckling, is that mine?!'
Still on Alex's bucket list are surprisingly, the Olympics, and the Adelaide CCI**** in Australia. She explained how despite working for a multiple Olympian for so long, she has yet to make it to the Games herself,
"Jackie and I basically split the four-star horses at William's between us; I did Parkmore Ed, Ballincoola and Highland Lad, and Jackie did Moon Man, Tamarillo and Cool Mountain, and we tried to go to the three days that each of us had our horses going to. At the one day events it varied; I did a bit more riding and galloping on the yard than Jackie did, although I also liked driving a lot and Jackie didn't like it as much, so it really just depended on what else was going on at the time. I never went to an Olympics with William though because the first time William went with Cosmopolitan, Alison was still there and she went with him, and then Tamarillo went in 2004 with Jackie but did not complete due to a stifle injury, and when Parkmore Ed went to Hong Kong in 2008, Jackie had not completed an Olympics and William asked if she could go. I would have loved to have gone but sadly is was not to be. William and I continue to be friends, I brought Neuf de Coeurs to Rolex this year and I help him out whenever I am asked, but I just thought if I wasn't going to get to the Olympics there after ten years, then it was time to go out and start freelancing, and try and find an opportunity to get to the Olympics somewhere else."
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Alex and Neuf des Coeurs in quarantine at Newburg en route to Rolex this year
Hopefully Alex's dream will come true next year in London,
"All being well Plan A is Team Portugal with Duarte Seabra. Other possibilities are assisting Team Thailand because I helped Nina (Ligon) this year when she came to England and took her horses to Pardubice. An alternative option would be word of mouth advertising to find another horse/nation to aid my quest to London 2012."
and she's hoping to fufill her Adelaide ambition next winter too, while I'm just looking forward to catching up with Alex again, hopefully at Rolex in the spring - by which time she'll have logged many more miles in the lorry, on the hunting field, and speeding up and down the length of England - and living vicariously through her, more than enough action for both of us!   Many thanks again to her for finding the time to stay still and chat, and many thanks for reading. Go the Grooms, and Go Eventing! 
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Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy & Helping the TPF Fire Victims, part 1

By Samantha L Clark on

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The Hyperbaric Chamber at Fair Hill

I think everyone knows about the tragic fire at True Prospect Farm by now, that claimed the lives of six horses and left five severely injured. At Eventing Nation, we've been providing regular updates on the recovery of those five, and in the latest installment, Caitlin had mainly good news, as well as telling us that her horse, Hoku (Catch A Star), and Boyd's WEG horse, Neville Bardos had been making daily visits to the Fair Hill Training Center to use the Hyperbaric Chamber there.  Today in part 1 we speak with Dr Slovis from Hagyard about the therapy.  Tomorrow we will hear from Caitlin about how the True Prospect horses are doing and from Bruce Jackson about his Fair Hill facility.

Hagyard Equine Medical Institute here in Lexington also has a Hyperbaric Chamber, and I've heard of quite a few eventers using it, a few more dressage horses, and plenty of foals and racehorses. I didn't really know much about it except that it's expensive, and the results are impressive, and once people have used it, they love it. Definitely a perfect excuse to find out more....!
Dr Nathan Slovis, a vet at Hagyard, is the Director of the Equine Emergency Response Team, and unfortunately has a wealth of experience in treating equine victims of barn fires and other catastrophes. He kindly took some time out of his busy schedule to explain hyperbaric oxygen therapy to me. 
In a nutshell, the horse is taken in to the sealed chamber. Air pressure is gradually increased delivering oxygen into the floor and slowly removing normal air through the roof. Eventually the oxygen will be close to 100% and the pressure such that it can be delivered more effectively to affected tissues, speeding up the healing process.
 At sea level, at normal atmospheric pressure, we are at "1 ATA" (Atmosphere Absolute).  When diving, for each 33 feet you travel down beneath that, (10 metres) the pressure increases by one atmosphere, eg  "2 ATA" at 33 feet.  2 ATA is the relative pressure most patients are exposed to  during clinical Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment Therapy. At 3 ATA,  (the maximum allowed by law) as the patient breathes in 100 % oxygen, an incredible 14 times more oxygen is absorbed than at sea level. 
As Dr Slovis told us, there is a long list of conditions that can be improved by Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment, and equally importantly, the horses seem to really enjoy it,

Thanks for speaking with us Dr Slovis.  Be sure to check back tomorrow for part 2 and go eventing.
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Bruce Davidson – Still Going Strong, part 1

By Samantha L Clark on
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You could be forgiven for thinking that Bruce Davidson had perhaps finally settled into a comfy chair to enjoy watching his son, Buck carry the torch in those famous red and yellow colours; after all with a fistful of medals from every major Championship in almost each colour, a Badminton & Burghley win to his credit, having been a mainstay on the US leading rider list for many years, and now a member of the US Eventing Hall of Fame there wouldn't seem to be much left to achieve. You would be forgiven, but you would be wrong! I made just this mistake and Bruce very kindly described to me exactly how busy he is, what excites him these days, and why we most definitely shouldn't discount seeing him back at the very top of the game again. I'm incredibly honoured and grateful to Bruce for his time, and also completely bowled over by his utter lack of ego, willingness to talk, love of the game and, above all else, of course - the horse.

"I have some nice, young horses, and I've been doing some low-level things with them - training and preliminary. They're pretty fancy horses so I'm not pounding on them but they'll come out in July and do a couple more preliminaries, and then I'll step them up at the end of the summer. That's my stallion, Keltic Lion, and I have a very, very nice grey mare called Here's Lola, and I ride a mare for Sophie Dupont called Expensive Playmate. I have those three, and that's all I'm doing with them, and then I have any number of young horses on the farm that I play with."
There's a common thread or two that run along the breeding lines of all the horses in Bruce's programme, lines that hark back to Eagle Lion and JJ Babu, but the threads tend to weave and  tangle together; I tried to keep them straight in my head as Bruce talked to me, but in the end all that matters is that Bruce is breeding some jolly nice horses,
"Keltic Lion is out of a sister to Eagle Lion and he's by Lux Z, the german show-jumper.  Patricia Nicholson bred him in Ireland and he's out of that great family. We thought it would be great to put the mare to the German horse once, and Keltic Lion could also be a pure show-jumper, he could do that as well but he has enough blood in him and he has enough gallop that I don't think that eventing would be an issue either. He's a six year old and I'm having a great time with him; he has a great temperament, he's good on the flat, he's a great jumper, he's very much an Eagle Lion type horse, he's just a really, really nice horse. I suppose he might be my reason to come back and do another four star, he's that good of a horse, and he's pretty straightforward, so as long as I don't fall off too much he's my big white hope!" 

The grey mare is more of an old fashioned Bruce Davidson type horse, and Bruce is happy to share the love,
"The mare, Here's Lola is thoroughbred and she's the JJ Babu family; she's out of a mare that's a niece to JJ Babu - her mother was JJ Babu's full sister. That's what I do, I mix the Eagle Lion family with the JJ Babu family. I bred the young stallion Lust who was out of JJ Babu's full sister and so I put that blood with the Eagle Lion blood, and the Little Tricky blood, and mixed up the horses that were good to me and it seems to work."
Rock on Rose, who finished 11th at Rolex last year with Boyd Martin deputising for an injured Bruce, was also closely related, and has since been sold,
"She was by Lust, and it was very hard to sell her; she's a lovely, lovely horse and would make the most exceptional broodmare someday. In the perfect world I would have kept her, and I would have enjoyed watching Boyd ride her and do more with her; it was quite nice her first time at a four star to come 11th? Not too bad! She wasn't very experienced but she's a very good jumper and very honest, and we had a lot of fun doing that, and the young lady that has her now is having some success so that makes me as happy as anything. Boyd also has a young horse now that is out of Eagle Lion's half sister, and he's very high on it, and that makes me happy, and it's fun watching him go on that.  Andrea Leatherman (Buck's girlfriend) has a mare of ours that we bred, that she rides and does a beautiful job with her. Buck rides a horse of mine that just now sold so he has to pick something else out here on the farm and get going on it. That's what it's all about; I have as fun much watching the horses I've bred go for other people, at whatever level they're going, as I do riding them myself."

I ask Bruce why he thinks it's so difficult for Americans to go abroad, to England or Europe, and compete successfully,
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"I wouldn't put it that way; I would say initially it's always a transition stage for any rider to move off the turf they're familiar with onto turf they're not familiar with, and I think it takes time in the learning process to a) become successful where you're familiar, and then b) become consistently and dependably successful where you're not familiar. I think that to go to a new site, particularly a Badminton or Burghley, something of this magnitude the very first time, which is in many young riders' cases the first time they've even seen it other than maybe on a tape, but I think to put yourself in that position, it takes each person a little bit of time to settle down and get on with the job the way they can, or hopefully can. I think a great deal of Canada's success last year was due to the fact that they were all very familiar with Kentucky. A lot of the Brits have done very well at their home competitions because from children they've gone there and watched them, and it's something they've grown up expecting to do. The familiarity gives you a sense of being in the right place and a little bit more a sense of ease. Being in a brand new place, particularly if everything is different, can take people time to settle down and get used to all that." 
Was Bruce himself overwhelmed when he first competed in England, I wonder, although I can't imagine it? His answer of course, should not surprise me by now; true to form, he's disarmingly frank, and modest,
"I think I was overwhelmed all my life. I think that each experience is awesome and daunting, and can overwhelm you. When I look back on the places that I had what seem to be my most straightforward successes, I guess I just went and did my job, and did not get too involved in anything other than the course, the stable and the arena. You zone in on that, but that takes time. You have to become familiar with the travel, and doing your last gallops in places you've never been before, and doing your last schools in facilities that aren't just like the ones you're used to, and so forth. I think for a lot of people, initially, all of that is slightly unsettling."
"I think a lot of people, also, make the journey and expose themselves before they've really accepted the exposure that's available here. We have a very good season here, and there's a lot to do. Until you win Kentucky and until you win Fair Hill, and maybe until you win them both in the same year, it seems to me, it's each individual's private case if they want to go beyond that, but if you go beyond that you're doing it prematurely. You don't get a better competition than Fair Hill and you don't get a better competition than Kentucky. If you haven't proven yourself regularly there, then it would be amazing if you went elsewhere where you were less familiar and had better success. I think people maybe get excited prematurely and that's unfortunate for the horses." 

Check back Wednesday for part 2 of my interview with Bruce, where he discusses Buck, his legacy, and enjoying life.  Thank you so much to Bruce for the interview and Go Eventing!

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Chatting with Laura Collett, one of GB’s bright young stars

By Samantha L Clark on
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Laura Collett is certainly not one to rest on her laurels; fresh off an impressive top ten finish at her first Badminton, ( 8th - and the one pole down in the show-jumping still irks her!), she barely had time to celebrate before she packed her trunks again, and took Ginger May Killinghurst to the CCI 3* in Saumur, France, where they finished 12th.   Laura also finished 12th this weekend in the U25 CCI3* at Bramham with Noble Bestman.

Laura competed show ponies as a young girl, winning the Supreme Pony Championship at the Horse of the Year Show in 2003, then transitioned to pony eventing, where she won Team Gold and Individual Bronze at the European Pony Championships. Her record on horses is equally, if not even more impressive, and I asked her about moving up,
"I was quite lucky because I had horses coming up whilst I was still doing ponies, so I had a couple running alongside, and I had a really good horse called Walnut who was almost like an overgown pony, and who taught me an awful lot. It wasn't too difficult because it happened gradually rather than finishing ponies and then suddenly having to get on to horses."
Another horse who helped her transition was Fernhill Sox, who's still part of her team,
"He's with his owner, he's absolutely fine but she just likes hacking him so he's with her at the moment!" 
Laura is very unassuming and easy to talk to, it's hard to believe she's achieved everything she has because she's incredibly down to earth, yet it's easy to see why so many owners have backed her, even at such a young age, and enjoy being a part of her team. She rides for various people, and doesn't have a particular "type" of horse,
"If they can do it, they can do it, whatever size of build or colour they are. I wouldn't really have a specific stamp of horse that I look for. Their brain is probably the most important thing for me."
If you believe in fate, then you'll know that Rayef and Laura were meant to be together (!), but if not, the story of how she found him might persuade you,
"Somebody had brought round Horsedeals Magazine, which we'd never looked at before, or since really, but I was just flicking through it and there was a picture of him in there, and I thought he looked really pretty so we 'phoned up about him. He was advertised as 16.1hh, otherwise we probably wouldn't have gone to see him, and as we arrived, after five hours driving to see him, it was snowing, and he was 16.3, and Mum was having heart failure because I was just coming off ponies!  Luckily it was my money that had bought Spring (Noble Springbok) and I was allowed to spend it on whatever I wanted, and I decided in the car on the way home, well, I decided straight away really, that I wanted him, even though Mum kept saying he was far too big, and I'm quite glad I did now!"
In the same determined fashion, Laura knew from an early age that she wanted to make a career out of riding, and went about making it happen,
"I decided pretty early that that's what I wanted to do. I think I'd decided I wanted to leave school and do horses before I'd really decided what I wanted to do, because I wasn't sure if I wanted to event or show-jump, but I was pretty set on leaving school after my GCSE's although it took a bit of persuading of Mum to let me!"
Touch wood, it seems that things are working out very nicely indeed so far for Laura. She's based at The Membury Estate, a fabulous facility in Wiltshire,
"It belongs to Philip and Sarah Walker; they bought Noble Springbok from the Soleys three years ago and they said that they wanted to build a yard, and have somebody based at the yard to help their daughter, and luckily for me, the Soleys suggested that I'd be the best person because I knew Spring inside and out, so they phoned us up with this amazing deal and we haven't looked back since. It's an amazing set-up, we've got everything, its' brilliant, and they're lovely. They've supported me loads, they own Ginger May Killinghurst, Fernhill Cristal, Noble Bestman and also it's not just providing a base to work from, they're definitely behind me which is really lovely."
The two 4* horses Rayef and Ginger May Killinghurst, and Noble Bestman who's headed for Bramham, make up about a third of the dozen horses in Laura's yard. The rest are, 
"Fernhill Cristal who's sidelined at the moment, but was about to do a 2*, Stormhill Cossack who's a new ride, and the rest are babies - five and six year olds that are just coming up through the levels."
Laura has help from her mum, and from one other girl, Felicity; she trains with Yogi Breisner, and has done since she was riding ponies. She is sponsored by clothing line Holland Cooper, amongst others, but they provide her with trot-up outfits, sight unseen! 
"Literally, I get my outfits on the day! They have very small sizes too! They're brilliant and they have loads of different stuff so it's quite nice to have something different for each trot up."
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Another of her sponsors is Barnsby Saddles, and in perhaps the only sign of nerves, they came out and did a custom fitting the week before Badminton, after Laura was worried about Rayef's changing shape as he got fitter and leaner,
"They kit out my top three or four horses with their own saddles, and then I just have a couple of saddles that fit the young ones that they share. Rayef has his own dressage and jumping saddle though, and I think it was probably more me having a bit of a panic really, but he suddenly dropped off a bit, and I didn't think it was fitting quite right, so they very kindly came out and fitted it at six o clock in the morning."
Laura turned 21 the week of Burghley last year, and fittingly rode clear cross country at her first 4* on the mare, Ginger May Killinghurst, a former Andrew Nicholson ride. I asked her what she's like to compete, and how she ended up in her barn,
"It happened sort of randomly. The breeders wanted to sell out, I think they only had five Killinghurst horses left. He was into racing, and it was the wife who was interested in the eventing, and she sadly died, so we heard about her by word of mouth, and we just thought it was a rare opportunity to get a 4* horse with so much experience so after discussing it, the Walkers decided it would be a good idea. She does things her own way, she's quite tricky show-jumping and she's very, very strong cross-country but I've realised how to handle her now I've got to know her a bit better and she's been brilliant for the experience. I've always really produced my horses myself, where I've known them from youngsters and they go in 'my way', and also I found it quite difficult to follow someone like Andrew Nicholson, but he was great, he's been really helpful. At Burghley, he told me that the more I pull, the more she pulls, because he knows I find her quite strong, and he said I have to be brave and just drop the reins! I did manage to trust him and do that and she gave me a brilliant round, and I did the same at Saumur, and it taught me a lot to be brave enough to do things like that."
The plan is to aim Ginger May Killinghurst back at Burghley this autumn.  However, Laura told me despite that great Burghley experience last year, nothing quite prepares you for Badminton,
"Everyone says Badminton's completely different to any other event, and it is, there's just something about it. It just seems to be bigger than the rest, and more pressure. I think because I went there knowing that there was a chance I could do quite well increased the pressure, whereas last year at Burghley I just wanted to get my first 4* under my belt, I didn't really have any pressure on there. I put quite a lot of pressure on myself because Rayef is so talented, and I think a lot of people had expectations as well, so that piled the pressure on.  Everyone says that I ride better under pressure, which is quite handy! I think I've just learnt to deal with it really."
At Badminton Laura won the Worshipful Co. of Saddlers' Saddle for the best rider under 25, and much was made of her youth. I asked her if this made her feel like she had more to prove,
"Not really. I didn't even realise until they said that I was the youngest there. I think because we're so used to competing against Mark Todd and Andrew Nicholson etc week in, week out you don't really see it as that much of a big difference. It only really hit home when I was sat next to Toddy and he said he did his first Badminton ten years before I was even born, so I was like well, if I make a mistake on Rayef I've got quite a few years to put it right!"
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 (Laura and Rayef also won the Frank Weldon Memorial Trophy for the youngest British owned and ridden horse in the top 12, as well as the Laurence Rook Trophy for the best British rider not previously completed Badminton and the Cotswold Life Trophy, )
In case you're reading this and turning green with envy, then yes, it would seem that Laura has it all - she's lovely, witty, uber-talented obviously, stunning and thrives on nerves, but she does admit to show-jumping being her least favourite phase, (sort of!)
"More than anything it's because you can drop so far down, for instance the fence I had down at Badminton cost me twenty-five grand, so I think just that you have to be so precise...but also I suppose it depends on what horse you're sitting on because actually on Noble Bestman, the show-jumping would be my favourite phase because he's such a good jumper, he's had one rail down since he started eventing, so it just depends."
Laura has been eventing professionally for six years now, and with her vast experience on the show pony circuit as a young girl, and then eventing ponies before that, horse show life for her is the norm,
"I've got great friends in eventing and I don't really know any different now, to be honest. In the winter I'll have a holiday, I'm very lucky the Walkers take me on their family holiday to Barbados. I haven't skied in probably ten years, but not because I'd be too worried about breaking anything, if you start thinking like that you'd never go out and do anything. If I had the chance to go ski-ing then yes I would, but I quite like my hot holidays lying in the sun doing nothing!"
Before Laura can look forward to her holidays though, she has a busy season still ahead, with her goal being the European Championships in Luhmuhlen in August,
"There are so many good combinations out there, I've just got to keep producing my best, and prove that it (Badminton) wasn't a fluke run really. Rayef will go to Barbury to do the CIC 3*; hopefully he'll perform well there and then we'll see what happens. If he's not selected he'll go to Burghley and hopefully show them they made a mistake not taking him if that's what happens!"
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I'd like to thank you for reading, and Laura for her time, and wish her a successful campaign; go eventing!
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Catching up with Steph Rhodes Bosch: Badminton & moving forward

By Samantha L Clark on
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This weekend will mark a month since Port Authority, fondly known as Ollie, arrived back in Virginia from England, where he contested Badminton with his rider, Steph Rhodes-Bosch. After a fantastic campaign last year - 5th at Rolex, and a silver medal and 9th individually at the WEG, and a solid spring prep this season culminating in a second place at The Fork CIC 3*, no one could have blamed the Canadian camp for having high expectations of this pair. A lacklustre dressage on Friday however, was followed up by a cross country that ended just shy of the official finish, after a rider fall at fence 27 out of 30, the quarry, having had just the one stop coming out of the Hunstman's Close at fence 24. 

Four weeks later Steph has had time to reflect on her experience, and talked to me about it. 
Since his return, Ollie has spent most of his days out in the paddock,
  "Ollie had an uneventful trip back, while mine was a bit of an adventure!  I left Heathrow on Tuesday afternoon at 2pm London time, and got back to my apartment in Virginia at 6pm EST on Thursday. He goes out for a varying number of hours each day; I'll feed him his breakfast in the morning and then turn him out, and whenever it gets too buggy for him, he comes in. It's been pretty good though, he's been managing to stay outside for at least three or four hours every day. He jogged up really well when he got off the truck coming back, and he's happy.  I think I'll start hacking him next week, and then I'll have Dr. Ober come and make sure everything's good before I put him back into flat work, but he looks good to me!"
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All things considered, with the way the competition panned out, and then her nightmare journey back home, I told Steph, I wouldn't be at all surprised if she wanted to completely forget Badminton 2011, but she said that wasn't the case at all,
"I absolutely don't look back on it as a failure in any sense other than I didn't cross the finish flags. He did a lot of the course, he did ten of the eleven minutes, he only had four obstacles left to go; we had our challenges through the course but every time you go out on cross country you have your challenges on course. Even though the result was what it was, I have a hard time thinking of it as a horrible experience or a fiasco or anything like that, I feel like it was such a positive experience, and a lot of those jumping efforts - you don't really appreciate the opportunity to walk the course, ride the course, and then watch the best in the world do exactly the same thing. I've been watching videos of Badminton since I was a child, but it's completely different to go and walk it, and it's completely different again to go and ride it, to feel what it feels like, and then watch other people do it on different types of horses. It was an invaluable experience and I don't think you can really appreciate it until you've done it and realised what you've got from it." 
"I think the objective of going to England was definitely to have a dry run for next summer, and see how the horses, and riders, were going to react. For myself, the logistics of getting everything organised, and what it all entails - I don't think you can really understand that until you've done it. I think the team takes care of a lot more of the logistics when it's an Olympics type situation, so the fact that I had to do a lot of my own organising for the Badminton trip, means that if I get to go to London next summer, it's going to be the second time around and I'm going to have more assistance, so a) it won't be a brand new thing and b) I don't think it will be quite as taxing because there's a little more involvement from the national team, as far as traveling in a herd and everyone being on the same plan."
"I knew that the reason we were being asked to go was because it was going to be unlike anything we'd ever seen before so that was definitely something I'd anticipated, but it was one hundred percent a completely different experience to anything I've ever had before at an event. I'm so glad that I got to see our sport, the sport that we all think 
we're really familiar with, to see it run that way, with that many really great horses and riders, the impeccable way the organising committee put it all on. To see the pinnacle of our sport they way it's supposed to be, to witness that was a pretty eye-opening experience; even if you do expect it going in, you just can't know what the actual reality of it is until you've been in the middle of it."
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Badminton also happened to be the first event that Steph was ever held on course, about two-thirds of the way round, just after the Lake, and I asked her how she thought this affected Ollie, and her, both mentally and physically,
"Well, I don't know what would have happened if we hadn't have been held, but I've never been held before, ever, and neither has my horse, obviously. I definitely felt as though he got distracted, and wound down a bit; you know how when they go cross country they get in that rhythm and then their adrenalin's going and they are in that mode, we definitely lost that, but it's hard to know what he would have felt like if he hadn't been held. It's hard to guess what would have happened in different circumstances, but I definitely noticed that he was not himself, not as focused afterwards."
"That's something I learned from having a horse that was unfocused and tired, I probably could use a different bit of some sort in the future, just to prevent the steering issues and fatigue that resulted from that. He goes in a two ring elevator type bit, and I think that when he was distracted and tired he then became a little bit unsteerable, there were just half a dozen things that led to my fall, but the hold was definitely something you want to have a game plan for, and I didn't. Also I've watched the video of Mark Todd in the quarry over and over again and tried to figure out ways I could have got my horse's face up like that. I felt like if I could have only helped my horse out the way he helped his horse out. I didn't really have enough respect for quite how tired my horse was at that point, and I think if I had ridden around Badminton twenty-something times like Mark Todd, then maybe I would have had that recognition of what a really tired horse feels like, and needs."
Despite the intensity of the competition, I wondered, are there moments when she could just marvel at the fact that she was riding at Badminton, and actually enjoy it?
"Oh my Gosh, YES, absolutely! Once I got there and had a chance to look around, I felt that 'Oh my gosh, I'm at Badminton' thing pretty constantly throughout the week. That was one of the things I was sorry I didn't get to experience at Rolex last year, because I was so concentrated on staying focused that I didn't ever get to feel super-excited. I don't think my focus suffered as a result of my enjoying the moment a bit more this time around, our issues were more a result of circumstance. I did have that thought to myself after Badminton, that that was the most relaxed during the day I've ever been at a competition, I let myself be positively affected by the atmosphere where I was, which I definitely did not do at Rolex, I shut that whole part off because I was worried that if I got excited then that would translate into getting nervous...but I don't think the results at Badminton really had anything to do with my willingness to get a little more excited about it, which is good because next time I won't be reluctant to let myself feel that way, and it's so much fun. I don't want to take all the enjoyment out of it just because I'm trying to be competitive."
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I asked Steph what she'll remember most about her first Badminton,
"Just the sheer scope of all of it. The depth of the personnel that they have: the fact that when you walk into the office everyone asks how they can help you, it's absolutely 100% customer service.  Apart from that...everything! Everything about that week and that event is an example of what every other event in the world should strive to be. Great riders, great quality of horses, obviously there's a time and a place for extremely difficult cross country courses and that's one of them, the course design, the course preparation, everything was exactly how I hoped it would have been. I can honestly say that it was the best overall experience of a horse show I've ever had, even though it wasn't the best overall competitive experience I've ever had. " 
After talking to Canadian Team Coach David O'Connor, Steph has mapped out a tentative schedule for Ollie this autumn,
"We have plans - obviously plans are subject to change (!) but we have a Plan A which is working towards the FairHill 3* in the Fall. In order to get from here to there, we need to do a preliminary at the second Maryland Horse Trials in mid-July, and then intermediate at probably Waredaca, with tons of dressage lessons in between, and then I'll probably just run Plantation and Morven Park advanced horse trials. Right now that's the tentative plan; we're not trying to run too many cross country courses between now and then. I think the preliminary and intermediate will be really good for him to get out and get back to how much he really enjoys it, because he really does love to go cross country. I think it will be nice for him to go out and have it be incredibly easy a couple of times. Then just focusing on trying to deal with the new mentality I've got from him these days; his attitude as he's been going advanced for longer and longer has changed, he's becoming less of the casual, laid back kind of guy that he has been, and is becoming a little bit more intense in character so we've just got to try and take care of that on the flat a bit better so it doesn't come across as tension." 
Although Steph and Ollie's rise to the top has been far from easy,( she's one of the hardest working event riders on the circuit, and all event riders work hard !) until this point it had all gone pretty well. It must have been hard to have Badminton be the one event when things started to unravel,
"I grew up with Rebecca Howard, and if there's anybody who's an example of what can go wrong, like Murphy's Law, then she's it but also of grace and resilience and character. She's had so many hard breaks and I've known her forever, and I know that with horses nothing is guaranteed, and I've had that drummed into me since I was a young kid. Rebecca's mother and my mother are very close, and one thing her mother has always said to my mum and I, is that with horses you can work really hard, but it's about how the stars line up on that day, sometimes there's just nothing you can do about it. I've always been so lucky in the past with this horse, so yes, it was really hard to be on the wrong end of it; to be in a situation where I really felt like we were prepared and all that good stuff, and for one reason or another, things just didn't quite work out, it's hard, but I don't necessarily feel like I was unprepared for it, I've had it made very clear to me the majority of my life that at some point things don't go the way you want them to, and you just have to deal with it." 
"Honest to goodness, even the very moment I fell off, I looked at his legs, and was just relieved. The first real emotion I felt was not, 'oh crap,I just fell off at Badminton', I looked at him, realised he was okay, and my first clear thought was to thank God that he was alright. Then obviously I was pissed, nobody wants to fall off at the tenth minute marker, almost home. If I'd have got over that fence we would have made it home and I would have had a chance to show-jump and it all would have been fine, that's obviously extremely frustrating and I went through the whole gamut of emotions that day, but at the end of it I 100% feel like, of all the things to happen at Badminton to a tired horse, I got one of the most minor outcomes ever, and I have to be incredibly grateful. Maybe that's my good luck, that I had a little shake-up but maybe my form of good luck is we'll go again." 
Canada sent three combinations to Badminton this year, and although none of them perhaps performed as well as they'd hoped, the fact that that they all started speaks to Canada's increased depth and strength of it's event squad, and they will be even more of a force to be reckoned with next year,
"We were all really excited to send three riders that have horses that are really, truly world-class horses. All three of us had our moment when it was less than ideal circumstances so I wouldn't say that we all had the weekend we were hoping to have, but given a little extra in the luck department we could have been right up there with everybody else. I think the team spirit was a little discouraged because of the end result but we were all so excited to have the opportunity to go abroad."
Steph talked to Team Coach David O'Connor following the event,
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 "Our emotions have evolved since Badminton; quite honestly none of us were very proud of ourselves at the end of the weekend. The four of us, David included, none of us was even remotely satisfied. David is so competitive, and he takes all of his work very personally, which is what makes him so good at what he does, because he's so involved. All three of us had the opportunity to go and be really good, and our best is a whole hell of a lot better than what we did, so no, none of us were pleased at all, but I think we've all had a chance to cool down, analyse it, realise and recognise what we should take away from it, and be able to just move forward with that. None of us are dwelling on it anymore, but definitely next year we've got this whole list of things that we are now familiar with, that we can take and use. I don't think any of us need to continue to be really upset about what happened because I don't think what happened is going to mark us for what we are and go into the future with us, I just think it's something that happened. I really hope that the other girls feel that way too. It's horses...it's not because we weren't ready, we didn't make gigantic mistakes that we can't fix, it's not that we don't have the skills, or the coaching or the horses, it was just that on that day in that moment those were the things that happened. Now we have the experience to make sure that we don't allow those same situations to happen again."
Steph still has the ride on her nice little sale horse Kojo, who moves up to training level at Rubicon, as well as some other rides this summer, but look out for her and Port Authority at the big events this autumn, and indeed the entire Canadian squad next year. I'd like to thank Steph wholeheartedly for talking so frankly about a subject that can't be easy, and thank you for reading. Go Steph and Ollie, and go Eventing! 
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