During her long partnership with Arthur Allison Springer has suffered plenty of disappointment, and each time has managed to find a silver lining and continue undeterred. This summer though she came over to England as US National Champion and with a practically flawless Spring season under her belt, so it must have been a particularly crushing blow to not make the cut for the Olympic Team. We spoke at Maizey Manor where she’s relocated to prepare for Burghley, on the day before the Opening Ceremonies of the Games. Of course Arthur looks fabulous, as he’s primed to run right now, and Allison told me that the challenge will be maintaining his form for another month,
“Ideally if you go to Burghley you want that to be your Plan A, Burghley should never be an afterthought. Burghley is going to be more difficult than the Olympics, it’s the toughest four star in the world so really you should be prepping your year and your season towards it so my horse is peaked right now, he was more than ready for the Olympics, and he didn’t have much of a break after Kentucky. I’m a little worried about Burghley because it’s tough on a horse to have them peak now, and we’ve got a month, we’ve got a long way. When I entered Burghley last month, I needed to do it at the time to set the ball in motion but I wouldn’t really make it my plan to go to Burghley until I could judge my horses health, weight and soundness coming out of the intense Olympic preparations. Arthur’s welfare always comes first in my decisions, and, as you can see, he continues to be in fantastic health right now. His weight is perfect, he is happy, sound and going better than ever, so Burghley it is! He’ll walk hack for 45 minutes to an hour each day and either do a light trot or more of a stretchy flat like I started out in the beginning of my ride, and just sort of take it easy like that, I can’t completely let him down and then pick him up and take him to Hartpury, that’s not good for his health and soundness either. It’s a bit of a tricky play right now, how to get him fully prepared for Burghley. Fortunately he’s kept his weight beautifully and he’s training really well, he’s really fit so we just won’t canter him until the week before Hartpury and then just do one canter before I go, and stop cantering him every five days now.”
Allison and Arthur jumping at Barbury
Coming to Maizey Manor was almost a foregone conclusion, “I’ve been to Maizey Manor before. I think when you stay on so long you really have to pair up with people you know with getting around and everything, so obviously Sinead is going to be here with Tate, and Esib (Elizabeth Powers) is amazing, and she’s not only going to help get us around but she’s a lot of fun as well. It’s just really easy here – Jacky (Green) is amazing too, Catherine (Burrell) is so nice, you have everything you need here, (turn-out, arena, hacking, access to gallops etc) so I didn’t even really research into other places, I already know this place and it seemed like the right choice.” and although Allison made sure to stress how much she appreciates being over here it was obvious that she missed some home comforts too,
“I’m dying to go home, I miss my dog like mad, I wish I had figured out a way to bring him. It’s just so long to be gone from home. It’s been nice, it’s just been a long time away from home. I feel like I’ve been here forever and I still have the same amount of time left that I have to stay here for Burghley, it seems like a long way away. I have a gorgeous new facility that I’m at this year, I’m just beginning to get the new business and lesson program going there and I had to drop it for two months so that was challenging, but I had a couple of fundraisers before I left because I knew if I stayed on for Burghley things were going to get really, really expensive really quick.”
The USEF has funded Arthur’s round trip, as they did all they all the short-listed horses and just like the other reserves, Allison has done her fair share of soul-searching, “It is what it is and the nature of selection means there are always going to be people who are heartbroken and people who are joyous, that’s just what it is. When I look back on our last two selection trials to figure out what I could have done better or differently after having such an amazing and well planned spring season, I’m not sure I could have changed much. After Rolex I was very conscientious to the fact that Arthur had just given me such a beautiful effort at Rolex and I was only going to give him a couple of weeks off before having to get him ready for Bromont and it just seemed so unfair. I would have loved to give him a full month off. He is a high energy horse that always maintains his fitness and it takes him a while (more like a month as opposed to two weeks) to let down. For him to have demonstrated the same form and focus at Bromont that he has had all year, I would have needed to keep riding him straight through from Rolex to Bromont and that, in my opinion, simply wasn’t an option. So I definitely showed up for a combined test thirteen hours away with my horse not in his top form – that didn’t help selection. Bar that, I did everything to prepare my horse as well as I could. After Bromont, I do feel I was fortunate to make the short list, period. Fortunately I did, and after his 13 hour trip back home he was on a plane less than a week later to England with Barbury just two weeks later. I look back at Barbury and my time here and I don’t think I could have done anything different to improve my chances of selection.”
Allison is also incredibly grateful for the additional training she’s received since being over here, and for the opportunity to work more closely with Captain Mark Phillips, “The dressage is dressage, I know how to get him in the ring on the day – even at 25 years old he’s still going to be a horse that’s on edge, that’s him, that’s his personality, but he is a very kind person, he’s very sweet; he’s spooky but he doesn’t do it in a nappy, terrible way and I know how to manage him and get him in the ring. His cross country record is sorted, especially this year it’s been beautiful and his show-jumping has been great, Lauren Hough has really helped me a ton. Lauren has been so helpful, she even said after the last lesson that her opinion of Arthur had totally changed, that he does want to jump clean. It was really helpful and positive working with her. Hopefully she’ll come back and help Sinead and I right before Hartpury and she’ll be at Burghley. I’ve got a lot of great training this month and I think that Mark’s opinion really changed about me and my horse, unfortunately too late because I think he probably had the most influence on it being between Tiana’s horse or mine. Who knows how things might have been different had this happened sooner but it doesn’t matter now.”
Again, my thanks to all the US reserves who have talked to me so openly about such a sensitive topic and I look forward to cheering them on in future Championships and many Olympic Games to come. Thank you for reading and Go Olympic Eventing!
