Prue Barrett is passionate, driven and focused. Call me a biased Australian, but in 16 months at the London 2012 Olympics, the Australian Eventing Team will once again climb atop the podium to be presented with their gold medals. And when they do, Prue will be standing quietly at the side of the arena, with a grin from ear to ear. I had a chance to interview Prue earlier today, and here is the interview along with my thoughts.
Prue has been chosen to follow in the footsteps of the legendary Wayne Roycroft, no other Eventing Coach in the history of Eventing has a record at the Olympics that comes close to Wayne. Is he easy to replace? n]No way, but Equestrian Australia have done something ballsy and inspirational by hiring Prue to lead the Australian Eventing Performance Program.
Prue will be without doubt one of the youngest people to lead a team in London, and she will have riders on the team her age and older, if we are lucky we may see a young whippersnapper, like Chris Burton, return to the team. Prue has both the respect of the riders and the team around her to make a gold medal a reality.
Before you start at me that she doesn’t have the experience of a Mark Phillips, Jimmy Wofford or even Phillip Dutton, hang on a sec.
Prue has represented Australia before, including WEG in The Hague in 1994 and also Rome 1998, she rode alongside Philip Dutton for a good part of her career before he left for the USA. Prue is both an experienced Coach and Coach Educator (she trains Coaches) in Eventing. She holds a Masters in Education from Sydney University specialising in Coach Education. Her role is as Performance Director of Eventing. This is different to what Wayne Roycroft did, she will not be standing in arenas, performing clinics and teaching personally all of our elite and up-n-coming riders. No, she will be leading the program, providing leadership, focus and direction to the program.
There have been suggestions that Australia follow the example set by New Zealand and uproot our program to the UK in preparation for the games. I asked Prue about this, “not on my watch, we produce some of the best riders in the world here in Australia, they learn and master their craft here, not in Europe or in the USA but in Australia”.
To demonstrate the point she said, look at the WEG results, if you took the Australian produced riders, Phillip Dutton (USA), Boyd Martin (USA), Stuart Tinney and Jonathon Paget (NZL) all rose to 3 star and beyond in Australia, they achieved a score of 143.5 at WEG with Phillip being dropped as the lowest score. This is only just behind Great Britain who finished on 139.4 and well ahead of Canada on 151.5. So the Aussie system isn’t broken–we had a bloody aweful day of cross country and lost one of our best horses in Megan Jones’ – Jester (or Festy to those who know and love him).
So where does Prue plan to take the team in the next two years? Firstly GOLD in London, sorry USA better start following those Canucks around and see if they drop any silver. But seriously, when I looked Prue in the eye I saw gold, not silver or bronze, gold.
But that is only part of the plan. Normandy and Rio are not that far off and she has her eye firmly on the plans for the future and ensuring that we not only have a full complement of riders to achieve success, but an excellent team of horses, vets, coaches and support staff around the riders.
Did I mention Prue is a Queenslander? No, I am sure you have seen the floods and then cyclone (read hurricane in North America) ripping through Queensland, devastating homes and communities in the path of natures wrath. People from Queensland are a little different to the rest of us Aussies, we discussed this and came to the conclusion that they are just a little more “Aussie” than the rest of us, deeper accents, a more laid back attitude, but if you are going to get in a bar fight and have the choice of a Queenslander or someone from Victoria to watch your back, pick the Queenslander.
I am sure in the weeks and months ahead, some people will make much of the fact that Prue is a woman. In terms of gender balance that may be important, but in terms of gold medals, it means nothing. That said the fact is that Prue is a wife and a mother of two young kids. That does mean something–she is tough and resilient. When your back is against a wall, things not going to plan, being a mum may count for something.
Personally, I think her background in understanding sport psychology and working with coaches in a diverse range of Olympic sports will help to bring both a well rounded and successful formula to the Australian Eventing Team. This understanding is why she won’t be uprooting the Aussie program to the UK. Our riders have families, lives and businesses, would you be 100% focused if you are 10,000 miles from home for 9 to 12 months? I know I wouldn’t.
Officially, Prue starts work next week, but she is already planning two trips to the UK, one fairly soon and then a return for Badminton. In this age of technology, skype and email, Prue can work closely with both riders and coaches across the globe, and still take her eldest son to soccer (football) on Saturday morning. She will be at all of the major competitions and has some great and firm ideas in her head for the next 16 months.
There are only 2 questions that are relevant at this point in time in my opinion.
- Does Prue Barrett have the capacity to lead Australia to the gold medal podium in London 2012? Yes, absolutely
- Will her contract be renewed following London 2012? Yes, without question.
Personally, I am very excited about the future of Eventing in Australia, I came away from our disappointing results at WEG feeling a little flat. After spending nearly two hours chatting with Prue, GOLD in London and Normandy for the Aussie team will be achieved and god help anyone who gets in her way along the way.
Yours in Eventing
ESJ
