Alex Van Tuyll – Never a Dull Moment!

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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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