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Samantha Clark

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On the Trails with Terance Eichhorn, a Bullfighter

By on Jul 19, 2011 8:07 pm -

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Terance Eichhorn has worked at the Ranch for eight seasons now, but has a very interesting second career; he’s in his fourth season bull-fighting. When he first told me, I was confused and thought he was a bull-RIDER, but he’s what they used to call the rodeo clowns. In essence, Terance presents himself to the bull as a better target than the bull-rider. Obviously, this is extremely dangerous, so not only is he pretty well protected when he goes in the ring – he wears a standard vest, knee braces, knee pads, elbow guards, wrist guards and a good pair of foot ball cleats – but he also went to school to learn his trade. There are bull fighting clinics where you learn the fundamentals, the footwork, how to work with a partner, even how to submit bids to get work at rodeos and gain sponsorship, and Terance told me he would highly recommend anyone wanting to get into the game to attend.
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Check out his belt buckle – bullfighters have competitions too
Terance continues to train with some of the best bullfighters in the business, and is busy working at rodeos every weekend this summer from the the beginning of June through until the middle of August.  He kindly explained how and why he chose bullfighting, the risks involved and what it takes to turn pro. 
@
Once he turns pro, Terance hopes to work the NFR rodeo, the same one he saw his father’s friend work on television so many years ago that planted the seed that grew into this passion. I’d like to thank Terance for his time, and wish him luck, and a safe go, in turning pro. I can see I’m going to have to watch 8 Seconds again when I go home! Cowboy up and Go Eventing! 

Alec Lochore – Behind the Scenes for London 2012 Eventing, part 2

By on Jul 19, 2011 2:36 pm -

Alec Lochore is the founder of Musketeer Event Management, he organises Burnham, Houghton and Cholmondeley Castle Horse Trials, has stints on the board of British Eventing and as chairman of BE’s National Safety Committee, as well as course designing, being an FEI Technical Delegate,  Director of the Blair Castle Horse Trials in Scotland, and now he has taken on the role of Eventing Manager for the London 2012 Olympic Games. Check out part 1 of my interview with Alec on Monday and here is part 2 of our interview.

Next year, of course, if you can’t make it in person, there’ll be a full crew of television cameras filming every conceivable angle at as many jumps as possible, bringing the world the complete Greenwich experience, and the photos alone that have already been generated from the Test Event have proven how valuable the venue is in generating publicity for Equestrianism.

“There are some properly iconic images; even internally on our internet the main screen saver now is actually Pippa Funnell jumping the fence as they go down the hill with Canary Wharf and the City in the background. It’s just a fantastic image, and it’s the sort of shot you can get in papers all over the world, and that’s what we’re trying to do, and that’s why we’re where we are. That’s why Greenwich is having the equestrian because we’re right in the middle of the city. I know that last time we were in the middle of Hong Kong, but we weren’t really – we did the dressage and show-jumping at Sha-Tin and that wasn’t really in the middle of the city, and then we went half an hour/forty minutes up the road to the cross country and back again. This time it’s all happening right here. It’s nine minutes from Greenwich to London Bridge Station and you can’t get more in the middle of London than that!”
pippa funnell and billy shannon.jpg
Pippa Funnell and Billy Shannon
I asked Alec if being Eventing Manager for the Olympics was much different to running Musketeer Management, and he burst out laughing, and told me it was almost impossible to compare,
“Here (LOCOG) you’ve got an enormous team of people you can rely on, whereas in the day-to-day running of Musketeer I’ve got Di and Gemma in the South, and Hannah in the office in the North. In the Olympics we don’t have to worry about tradestands particularly or sponsors greatly, because there are no tradestands and sponsors are above our pay station. Here if I worry about transport and how that’s going to work, there’s a Transport Department so what I’m able to do is concentrate the sport. That means that my job here, under the leadership of Tim, is to coordinate with all these other Departments – Transport, Accreditation, Ticketing, Logistics, it goes on and on and on, it’s  more about coordination than management. Whereas at a normal event you have to set up the traffic management system and tell the car parking guys how to do it, you’ve got to set up the tradestands, you’ve got to decide how much the tickets are going to cost, what paper to print them on, who’s going to collect them…you’ve just got to do everything, whereas here I just concentrate on building a really good team that can deliver the sport, and then coordinate with all the other people to in order to make sure that the sport gets what it needs. The other departments and the General Manager are at pains to point out that we all remember we’re here because of sport; the role of the other area departments is to support and work around sport, which is great, and I suppose the massive, fundamental difference. I’m here to only concentrate on one aspect of an event, and coordinate with other aspects, rather than coordinate all aspects and ensure sport!” 

“Here in sport we are a small team of four coordinating all aspects. Sophie Attwood who is the Services Manager and Stephen Renouard who is the Dressage and Show Jumping Manager, and I feel as a team under Tim we have a strong and positive working team, who work well as a team”
“It’s completely different, but that’s not to say that the skill sets I’ve developed over the years aren’t valuable, because they are, and it would be absolutely right to suggest that I’ll come out with a better understanding and more skill sets having left the organisation.” 
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Alec taking care of details at Houghton last year
So although it sounds like he plenty of authority, he actually has less control over the details, and I wondered if that was was hard for him to let go? 
 “I think that was probably something that I struggled with to start with. In the past when I’ve had to make a decision I never really dwelt on the consequences that it may have on another department because normally if there were consequences and I’d forgotten to tell someone, then it was just tough because it was my fault. Now, something as simple as for example, you get three or four withdrawals and so the dressage might end twenty-five or thirty minutes earlier, and I forget to tell anybody – all of a sudden the grandstands empty twenty-five minutes earlier and Event Services have been planning for a mass evacuation for maybe half-past two, and it’s all happened at two-o-clock. I have to be much more aware of the decisions that I make, and the impact that they may have on others. Sometimes that brings pressure. Sometimes it’s hard to understand the logic of what one department is saying you have to do, and you know it’s not the way that you would ordinarily do it, but you also have to realise that there’s twenty-six other sports in the Games, and you’re only one of them, and this is the same in Rowing and Badminton and Tae Kwando as it is in Equestrian, and the reason it’s being done like this is because that model fits others. You have to accept it, and put your faith in the system.” 
Alec will be at Cholmondeley Castle and Blair later this summer, but in a working capacity. When I asked him if he gets to enjoy any events at all anymore, he did have to ponder it for a few seconds! 
“Of course, I enjoy them all because if I didn’t then I wouldn’t bother going! I did a few hours work at Badminton but the benefits are it’s work without pressure, I had no responsibility, and that’s different. I’m not responsible if someone falls off, or if the hot water breaks down, or if showers don’t work and the loos get blocked! I’ll go to Burghley and I’m sure I’ll do something there but it will certainly be more relaxed, I’ll have time to go and look at the tradestands, which I hate, because I hate shopping, because I’m such a mean Scot!” (Alec cracks up laughing!).  
A Scot, and self-confessed country life lover, who now finds himself living solo in the city during the week; I ask him how it agrees with him, or perhaps not?
 “It’s making me fatter because I spend a lot of time sitting in a chair and eating an awful lot and not very much time taking any exercise!  It’s just over three hours door to door from home for me, so I come in on a monday morning and I’m out on a friday night.  One of the really interesting things about the environment in which we work is people come from all walks of life, from all over the world, quite literally. In our team we’ve got Australians, New Zealanders, British, Greek, French, Swiss….and those are just the people I can see from where I am right now. It’s a very diverse body of people yet all completely united in a common goal. I was lucky enough to be an NTO under Tim Hadaway at a previous Games, some people have never been involved before at all, quite a lot of the people go from Games to Games to Games, or they do a Summer Games, Winter Games, Summer Games, depending on their contract, or their particular area of expertise. Some people will even fit in a football or rugby World Cup in between all that!  There’s a lot of people here who are very experienced in the Games time scenario, and some have done quite a number, and some have done one or two.  It’s great fun, I go and play hockey every second or third week with the local hockey team, and there’s a touch rugby team so there’s plenty going on, you’ve just to get out and do it, and not sit behind your desk all the time.” 
 
Meanwhile, Emily is equally busy at home in Norfolk with the two boys and eventing,
“She’s got quite a few youngsters on the go at the moment, some nice intermediate horses. It’s just that perennial problem of her trying to find one good one that stays sound long enough for her to get to the top, particularly when you’re doing it on a relatively limited budget, juggling it with the kids, and she teaches four or five lessons a day, and she rides four or five a day as well. She’s a pretty good workaholic herself, so in lots of ways our lives haven’t changed;  the only difference is I now come home at weekends and that’s when she’s off to an event! ” 
I managed to catch Alec’s speech to the Horse Trials Support Group at Badminton in the Spring, and although he professed to being nervous, you’d never have known it, and he won the crowd over in minutes.  Energetic, engaging, and great fun, I almost can’t imagine him living a “normal” life now, and ask him what he’ll do on 1st August next year when the Games are over – will he return to the helm of Musketeer? 
“We’ll have to see about that. It’s going to keep running; I haven’t built it up over ten years and spent the time, money and commitment with the girls to let it go, so it definitely will continue. It might be that I operate it in a slightly different manner if I’ve got the confidence to leave them to get on with it, and I’ve got no reason to believe that I wouldn’t have. I might have a slightly different role – I might not paint quite as many white stakes as I once did! It will definitely carry on, and I don’t know what opportunities will spring out of this, the Games, I still enjoy designing courses, I still enjoy being a TD so hopefully I’ll get opportunities to do some more of that.”
I’m hoping his travels will perhaps include Kentucky and North America, and he divulges that Adelaide is the only remaining major event that he has yet to attend, so maybe he’ll be taking a trip down under once the Olympics wrap up. I have to admit I share his dream for British Gold next year, and I think the 2010 Olympic Eventing is in good hands. I’d like to thank Alec for his time, and thank you reading. GO GB, and Go Eventing! 

Alec Lochore – Behind the Scenes for London 2012 Eventing, part 2

By on Jul 19, 2011 2:27 pm -

Alec Lochore is the founder of Musketeer Event Management, he organises Burnham, Houghton and Cholmondeley Castle Horse Trials, has stints on the board of British Eventing and as chairman of BE’s National Safety Committee, as well as course designing, being an FEI Technical Delegate,  Director of the Blair Castle Horse Trials in Scotland, and now he has taken on the role of Eventing Manager for the London 2012 Olympic Games. Check out part 1 of my interview with Alec on Monday and here is part 2 of our interview.

Next year, of course, if you can’t make it to the Olympics in person, there’ll be a full crew of television cameras filming every conceivable angle at as many jumps as possible, bringing the world the complete Greenwich experience, and the photos alone that have already been generated from the Test Event have proven how valuable the venue is in generating publicity for Equestrianism.

“There are some properly iconic images; even internally on our internet the main screen saver now is actually Pippa Funnell jumping the fence as they go down the hill with Canary Wharf and the City in the background. It’s just a fantastic image, and it’s the sort of shot you can get in papers all over the world, and that’s what we’re trying to do, and that’s why we’re where we are. That’s why Greenwich is having the equestrian because we’re right in the middle of the city. I know that last time we were in the middle of Hong Kong, but we weren’t really – we did the dressage and show-jumping at Sha-Tin and that wasn’t really in the middle of the city, and then we went half an hour/forty minutes up the road to the cross country and back again. This time it’s all happening right here. It’s nine minutes from Greenwich to London Bridge Station and you can’t get more in the middle of London than that!”
pippa funnell and billy shannon.jpg
Pippa Funnell and Billy Shannon
I asked Alec if being Eventing Manager for the Olympics was much different to running Musketeer Management, and he burst out laughing, and told me it was almost impossible to compare,
“Here (LOCOG) you’ve got an enormous team of people you can rely on, whereas in the day-to-day running of Musketeer I’ve got Di and Gemma in the South, and Hannah in the office in the North. In the Olympics we don’t have to worry about tradestands particularly or sponsors greatly, because there are no tradestands and sponsors are above our pay station. Here if I worry about transport and how that’s going to work, there’s a Transport Department so what I’m able to do is concentrate the sport. That means that my job here, under the leadership of Tim, is to coordinate with all these other Departments – Transport, Accreditation, Ticketing, Logistics, it goes on and on and on, it’s  more about coordination than management. Whereas at a normal event you have to set up the traffic management system and tell the car parking guys how to do it, you’ve got to set up the tradestands, you’ve got to decide how much the tickets are going to cost, what paper to print them on, who’s going to collect them…you’ve just got to do everything, whereas here I just concentrate on building a really good team that can deliver the sport, and then coordinate with all the other people to in order to make sure that the sport gets what it needs. The other departments and the General Manager are at pains to point out that we all remember we’re here because of sport; the role of the other area departments is to support and work around sport, which is great, and I suppose the massive, fundamental difference. I’m here to only concentrate on one aspect of an event, and coordinate with other aspects, rather than coordinate all aspects and ensure sport!” 

“Here in sport we are a small team of four coordinating all aspects. Sophie Attwood who is the Services Manager and Stephen Renouard who is the Dressage and Show Jumping Manager, and I feel as a team under Tim we have a strong and positive working team, who work well as a team”
“It’s completely different, but that’s not to say that the skill sets I’ve developed over the years aren’t valuable, because they are, and it would be absolutely right to suggest that I’ll come out with a better understanding and more skill sets having left the organisation.” 
alec mends a fence at houghton.jpg
Alec taking care of details at Houghton last year
So although it sounds like he plenty of authority, he actually has less control over the details, and I wondered if that was was hard for him to let go? 
 “I think that was probably something that I struggled with to start with. In the past when I’ve had to make a decision I never really dwelt on the consequences that it may have on another department because normally if there were consequences and I’d forgotten to tell someone, then it was just tough because it was my fault. Now, something as simple as for example, you get three or four withdrawals and so the dressage might end twenty-five or thirty minutes earlier, and I forget to tell anybody – all of a sudden the grandstands empty twenty-five minutes earlier and Event Services have been planning for a mass evacuation for maybe half-past two, and it’s all happened at two-o-clock. I have to be much more aware of the decisions that I make, and the impact that they may have on others. Sometimes that brings pressure. Sometimes it’s hard to understand the logic of what one department is saying you have to do, and you know it’s not the way that you would ordinarily do it, but you also have to realise that there’s twenty-six other sports in the Games, and you’re only one of them, and this is the same in Rowing and Badminton and Tae Kwando as it is in Equestrian, and the reason it’s being done like this is because that model fits others. You have to accept it, and put your faith in the system.” 
Alec will be at Cholmondeley Castle and Blair later this summer, but in a working capacity. When I asked him if he gets to enjoy any events at all anymore, he did have to ponder it for a few seconds! 
“Of course, I enjoy them all because if I didn’t then I wouldn’t bother going! I did a few hours work at Badminton but the benefits are it’s work without pressure, I had no responsibility, and that’s different. I’m not responsible if someone falls off, or if the hot water breaks down, or if showers don’t work and the loos get blocked! I’ll go to Burghley and I’m sure I’ll do something there but it will certainly be more relaxed, I’ll have time to go and look at the tradestands, which I hate, because I hate shopping, because I’m such a mean Scot!” (Alec cracks up laughing!).  
A Scot, and self-confessed country life lover, who now finds himself living solo in the city during the week; I ask him how it agrees with him, or perhaps not?
 “It’s making me fatter because I spend a lot of time sitting in a chair and eating an awful lot and not very much time taking any exercise!  It’s just over three hours door to door from home for me, so I come in on a monday morning and I’m out on a friday night.  One of the really interesting things about the environment in which we work is people come from all walks of life, from all over the world, quite literally. In our team we’ve got Australians, New Zealanders, British, Greek, French, Swiss….and those are just the people I can see from where I am right now. It’s a very diverse body of people yet all completely united in a common goal. I was lucky enough to be an NTO under Tim Hadaway at a previous Games, some people have never been involved before at all, quite a lot of the people go from Games to Games to Games, or they do a Summer Games, Winter Games, Summer Games, depending on their contract, or their particular area of expertise. Some people will even fit in a football or rugby World Cup in between all that!  There’s a lot of people here who are very experienced in the Games time scenario, and some have done quite a number, and some have done one or two.  It’s great fun, I go and play hockey every second or third week with the local hockey team, and there’s a touch rugby team so there’s plenty going on, you’ve just to get out and do it, and not sit behind your desk all the time.” 
 
Meanwhile, Emily is equally busy at home in Norfolk with the two boys and eventing,
“She’s got quite a few youngsters on the go at the moment, some nice intermediate horses. It’s just that perennial problem of her trying to find one good one that stays sound long enough for her to get to the top, particularly when you’re doing it on a relatively limited budget, juggling it with the kids, and she teaches four or five lessons a day, and she rides four or five a day as well. She’s a pretty good workaholic herself, so in lots of ways our lives haven’t changed;  the only difference is I now come home at weekends and that’s when she’s off to an event! ” 
I managed to catch Alec’s speech to the Horse Trials Support Group at Badminton in the Spring, and although he professed to being nervous, you’d never have known it, and he won the crowd over in minutes.  Energetic, engaging, and great fun, I almost can’t imagine him living a “normal” life now, and ask him what he’ll do on 1st August next year when the Games are over – will he return to the helm of Musketeer? 
“We’ll have to see about that. It’s going to keep running; I haven’t built it up over ten years and spent the time, money and commitment with the girls to let it go, so it definitely will continue. It might be that I operate it in a slightly different manner if I’ve got the confidence to leave them to get on with it, and I’ve got no reason to believe that I wouldn’t have. I might have a slightly different role – I might not paint quite as many white stakes as I once did! It will definitely carry on, and I don’t know what opportunities will spring out of this, the Games, I still enjoy designing courses, I still enjoy being a TD so hopefully I’ll get opportunities to do some more of that.”
I’m hoping his travels will perhaps include Kentucky and North America, and he divulges that Adelaide is the only remaining major event that he has yet to attend, so maybe he’ll be taking a trip down under once the Olympics wrap up. I have to admit I share his dream for British Gold next year, and I think the 2010 Olympic Eventing is in good hands. I’d like to thank Alec for his time, and thank you reading. GO GB, and Go Eventing! 

The Big Sky State

By on Jul 18, 2011 8:01 pm -

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We’ve made it to Montana, and it’s everything I possibly I could have imagined and more. It’s no wonder they call it Big Sky Country, the scale of the landscape is enormous, and the scenery takes your breath away. Just on the drive from the airport to the Ranch the kids were in awe of the long grass waving in the wind, and I was so stoked that they still even noticed things like that – the hippie in me breathed a huge sigh of relief, and have continued to breathe nothing but fresh mountain air since we arrived.

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They don’t call it God’s country without good reason.This afternoon we went on a family ride up into the mountains, and saw a moose. 
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Amazing, still can’t quite believe it! Adam has worked here at the ranch for going on 13 years, and was an incredible guide, pointing out trees, flowers, wildlife, said moose and more, not to mention being wonderfully patient with Harry and Lily who chattered away incessantly, asking questions nineteen to the dozen! By the end of our ride they were both loping like old hands, we’ll be wrangling soon! He may not be the Jake Gyllenhall I was secretly hoping for, but he was terrific, regardless! 
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Adam on Bud. He sources most of the 150-odd horses at the ranch locally, advertised on the internet in the classifieds, or on Craig’s List. The ranch is on about 9,000 acres, and the horses all go out at night to graze, and are taken to and from the corral in a huge group by the wranglers each day, a sight to behold. 
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Ponies waiting to be ridden
Each horse is freeze branded with the Ranch logo; they stopped using hot iron branding a while ago.
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They all have shoes all round, look incredibly healthy, and were remarkably sure-footed on the mountain trails, thank goodness! 
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Harry’s ride, Sylvester who was like Nana the dog in Peter Pan, and could not possibly have looked after him any better. 
Here is my EN ears photo for the week:
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On wednesday we head to Kalispell for Rebecca Farm,but in the meantime, here’s the view from my cabin
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Cowboy up, and Go Eventing! 

Alec Lochore – Behind the Scenes for London 2012 Eventing, part 1

By on Jul 18, 2011 2:09 pm -
All of these fabulous photos are used with kind permission of the one and only Nico Morgan.
See these and many more amazing shots at www.nicomorgan.com. Many thanks as always.
alec at burghley.jpg

As the founder of Musketeer Event Management, organising Burnham, Houghton and Cholmondeley Castle Horse Trials, stints on the board of British Eventing and chairman of BE’s National Safety Committee, as well as course designing, being an FEI Technical Delegate,  Director of the Blair Castle Horse Trials in Scotland, and married to his beautiful wife, Emily with two young boys (phew!) – one might think Alec Lochore had enough on his plate to keep him busy, and drive most normal people insane.  It was about a year ago now though, that he was offered the position of Eventing Manager for the London 2012 Olympic Games, and the unique opportunity, he told me, was just too fantastic to turn down,

Luckily Alec admits he thrives on pressure, “most of the time”, although, “every now and then I’d like it to relent so I can take a breath.” There will probably be scant chance of that happening with about a year to go until the Games now, and less than a year since Alec took the job on,
“I started the beginning of July 2010. It was as little amount of time as we could afford really. One of the problems was that I didn’t actually start full-time until September because I had so many other commitments already on the go, and I think my life would have been a lot easier if I’d been able to start on the day when they said they wanted the job to start, rather than when I said I could! Tim Hadaway, (Olympic Equestrian Manager) was very lenient in that respect and I was given time to go and do what I needed to do – I was TD at Burghley, I was running Blair, so I couldn’t just drop all of that and come immediately.”
Musketeer Event Management does continue regardless,
“I’ve got two and a half full time girls in the office in Norfolk, and one and a half, almost two full time people in the office at Blair, so between them they’re keeping the shows on the road, quite literally. I haven’t made it easy for them – we’ve got a new event which we’ve just started in a fortnight’s time, (Cholmondeley Castle) and we’ve got 560 entries in our first year, which is a very nice position to be in, but it certainly puts the pressure on. We’ve got the European Young Rider Championships at Blair this year; we did all these things and then I buggered off!”
Alec is used to competing at a high level, and I wondered if he’d swapped one adrenaline fix for another?
“It’s different, totally different.  Whereas a four star cross country round lasts somewhere between ten or twelve minutes and you have a pretty big buzz after that, and your ego swells, or you rub down your wounds if it hasn’t gone well, this is a two year trip, a two year course if you like, with plenty of challenges along the way. It will be great, but a clear round, the end goal is a gold medal for Britain. Of course, first of all you want everyone to have a safe time, but secondly, let’s be patriotic about it, I want Britain to win!   I think if you interviewed Jeremy Edwards, the Venue General Manager, or Stu Baker the Logistics Manager, or whoever it happens to be in the office from a strong eventing nation they’d say they don’t mind who wins, it will be a great Games –  as long as it’s Australia, or New Zealand, or…! To me a gold for Britain would be epic: for our sport it would be epic because we’ve got a truly iconic venue, we’ll be one of the first medals that Britain have a chance of winning, it would be on Day 4 of the Games and the publicity and the hype around it would be enormous.” 
William F-P s-j Gaucho at Test Event.jpg
William Fox-Pitt show-jumping Gaucho at the Olympic Test Event at Greenwich
With the Test Event now completed, I asked Alec if he feels a sense of relief,
“Yes, but it was just that – a Test Event, we tested a lot of things, we ran quite a big event at a brand new site for the first time. The second time we run it will be a huge four star, and it’s not just going to have a million or two people watching it like at our other events, it’s going to have hundreds of millions of people watching from all over the world. It went really well, but there were plenty of challenges;  we’ve got pages and pages of de-briefing notes that we’re wading through and speaking to all the Team Leaders, not just the cross-country, but the guys from the Para, the guys from the Dressage and Show-Jumping, as well as the guys from the Modern Pentathlon because obviously we shared the venue with them and they had their World Cup Final there on Saturday and Sunday. There’s a long way to go; I think we can be pleased with how far we’ve got and what we’ve done to this point but it wasn’t the finished article and nor should we have expected it to be, because that would have been completely unrealistic.”
 
Alec did admit though that he was pleased to have won over many of the doubters,
 
“What we’ve managed to do is we’ve managed to show the equestrian world, almost without exception that Greenwich can work –  I can’t think of anyone who didn’t come, and we had a lot of people here, particularly on the cross country day because the British Equestrian Federation were able to give a way a lot of tickets, – we were able to convince people who’d admitted to previously being somewhat skeptical and dubious, and they are now completely converted, they told me they absolutely get it, that now they understand what we’re doing and why we’re here.”
“There were certainly some doubters, and what was interesting was that anybody who was, has  always been converted pretty nearly immediately once they’ve been to the venue and understood the philosophy. There was a very interesting letter written to the Chairman, Lord Coe, that we’ve been kindly sent, I can’t say who wrote it but somebody who’d been a big doubter, and he said that having been to the Test Event he now really understands that Legacy comes in two forms: the hard, concrete kind, literally – buildings and infrastructure that you can leave behind, but also you have sporting legacy where you’re bringing something to people who’ve never experienced it before. He wrote that having been quite a fierce critic of Greenwich before, he was now totally convinced.  I think it’s easy to complain, but it takes a real man to write to the Chairman, at the highest level, and admit that you’ve got it wrong for the last four or five years.”
 “It wasn’t everybody who needed convincing though, some people got it straight away. I went to the venue on one of the tours just out of interest that Tim (Hadaway) did way back, when he first go the job. Having been to Hong Kong and Sydney I went with a completely open mind, and I could see quite well that it was a nice idea, and then when I got there I could see why it was an even better idea!  A lot of the time when you used to hear people being very negative about the site, it was because they’d never been there, and they hadn’t tried to understand why it is where it is. We do feel vindicated, definitely, but you can’t please all the people all the time! There will always be one or two people who aren’t happy, and they’ll be the one’s who get publicised now because it’s the minority view, and otherwise it gets boring to hear people say it’s brilliant!”
waylon roberts and Blockbuster III.jpg
Waylon Roberts and Blockbuster III
Although Alec himself was fully supportive of Greenwich, he told me the Test Event was pretty special,
“There was an extraordinary atmosphere, the likes of which I’ve never seen, or felt, or been part of before, and I’ve been to most of the big events in the world now. Greenwich Council also gave away thousands of tickets on cross country day, and they gave an awful lot of them to the schools so we had all these schoolchildren and  it was completely surreal – we had quite a lot of these poor, younger, two star horses galloping down to the water jump with this absolute cauldron of noise and cheering, and it was going on in the show-jumping as well, you could see their eyes out on stalks and they were thinking, ‘what on earth is this? I’ve never seen anything like this in my life?’  In the end though, it was really positive. It was just such a fantastic day; we had lovely weather, we had fantastic competition, we had some of the world’s best riders – Michael Jung went out first and William Fox-Pitt was about sixth, and it just went on and on and on –  if you think that we had the first three on the podium from last year’s World Games and four of the top five from the last Europeans, that’s how high quality the field was. These guys were watching some of the best exponents of horse-riding, full stop, in the world, and it was just a fantastic atmosphere, it was carnival! It was extraordinary, and the riders all commented on how electric it all felt.”
 
Thanks for speaking with me Alec and be sure to stop by Tuesday for part 2 of my interview with Alec.

PS: Completely off topic, but if you are a chronic time waster like me, and browsing Nico’s pictures of the Test Event (warning, you could lose hours, days!), check out Sara Algottson Ostholt and Mrs Medicott taking flying lessons into the water jump, and my personal favourite,  Borough Penny ridden by Italy’s Vittoria Panizzon.

This article is also published on SamanthaLClark.com

Hamish & Sandhills Tiger – a parting of ways?

By on Jul 15, 2011 6:30 pm -

hamish & tiger galloping.jpg

Who didn’t fall in love a little bit with Hamish and Dave during the World Equestrian Games, and who didn’t fall in love a little bit more with Hamish during Rolex this spring? Arriving ridiculously early due to quarantine and travel restrictions, he let us see Kentucky and the Horse Park all over again with fresh eyes and perspective – a decidedly down under take on the weather, 
hamish weather tweet.jpg
the campground, 
hamish campground tweet.jpg everything else in between, as well as an honest and personal account of his own journey and admittedly, an ultimately slightly disappointing finish. 
I was lucky enough to catch up with Hamish a couple of days ago, and he told me what he’s been up to since leaving Kentucky, what Dave’s been up to: clue  – it involves growing a beard and a mustache! 
photo.jpg
Looking rather like a good ol’ Kentucky boy – Dave aka The Fall Guy!
and when he’ll be re-united with Sandhills Tiger, and what their plans are. He also told me who’s coming to Burghley with him, what happened to all his tack, and how excited he is about his next bunch of horses.   

Click the audio player above to hear Hamish’s interview.   Click here if the player does not work, or save the file to your computer and you can listen to the MP3 in iTunes or on your iPod. [Hamish Interview MP3]

hamish - trot up.jpg

Many thanks to Hamish for his time; wishing him safe travels and a successful trip around Burghley. Thanks for listening, and Go Eventing!

This article is also posted on SamanthaLClark.com

Hamish & Sandhills Tiger – a parting of ways?

By on Jul 15, 2011 6:26 pm -

hamish & tiger galloping.jpg

Who didn’t fall in love a little bit with Hamish and Dave during the World Equestrian Games, and who didn’t fall in love a little bit more with Hamish during Rolex this spring? Arriving ridiculously early due to quarantine and travel restrictions, he let us see Kentucky and the Horse Park all over again with fresh eyes and perspective – a decidedly down under take on the weather, 
hamish weather tweet.jpg
the campground, 
hamish campground tweet.jpg everything else in between, as well as an honest and personal account of his own journey and admittedly, an ultimately slightly disappointing finish. 
I was lucky enough to catch up with Hamish a couple of days ago, and he told me what he’s been up to since leaving Kentucky, what Dave’s been up to: clue  – it involves growing a beard and a mustache! 
photo.jpg
Looking rather like a good ol’ Kentucky boy – Dave aka The Fall Guy!
and when he’ll be re-united with Sandhills Tiger, and what their plans are. He also told me who’s coming to Burghley with him, what happened to all his tack, and how excited he is about his next bunch of horses.   

Click the audio player above to hear Hamish’s interview.   Click here if the player does not work, or save the file to your computer and you can listen to the MP3 in iTunes or on your iPod. [Hamish Interview MP3]

hamish - trot up.jpg

Many thanks to Hamish for his time; wishing him safe travels and a successful trip around Burghley. Thanks for listening, and Go Eventing!

David Stubbs – Master Craftsman

By on Jul 11, 2011 3:41 pm -
Lexington and the University of Kentucky have a reputation for attracting talent to the area – think John Calipari and the Wildcats, Dr Pearse Lyons and Alltech – and David Stubbs is no exception. At just 23 years old, he’s already in demand as a master craftsman of quality custom made tack trunks, cabinets, kitchens, bathrooms, stalls, barns…anything you can dream of made in wood!  
IMG_8664.jpg
He was recruited here a couple of years ago by the Historic Preservation Program at UK as their graduate research assistant, and tells me it wasn’t that hard of a sell to persuade his dressage rider fiancee, Mara Rice, to relocate.  Since then, he’s been hard at work building Mara a barn, completing a walk-in closet for a lucky customer in Asheville, N Carolina, and a full cherry kitchen in Washington DC amongst many other things. No small wonder then that he just has to find the time to write his thesis before he can complete his Masters at UK! 
IMG_8653.jpg
David built this trunk for Mara about six years ago, and it gets used daily with no special care. It was used as a display at WEG, he just polished it up, and it looked as good as new. It’s crafted from maple wood, stained on the outside, and has the bandage rack a grooming kit, and tray, and all trunks come standard with wheels. Typically from the first contact with David,  a trunk might take about 4- 6 weeks to make, and one with all the extras like the one above would run about $1,500.
Despite being a clean-cut 23 years old, David has been in the business for ten years already; he told me with a grin that he sold outdoor furniture in middle school, and he built this beautiful, and yes, functional, boat that was hanging from the rafters when he was in high school. 

IMG_8672.jpg

When I asked him if it was just for show, anyone else might have been insulted, but David is far too nice, and just laughed, and told me he couldn’t remember exactly, but he thinks he used over a hundred different cedar strips on it.  He explained how it all started,

“Ever since I was young, and realised I could make money doing what I loved, is when I realised that I wanted to own a woodworking business. I’ve always wanted to be involved in design, construction, and just making something that makes the customer happy. So for my degree I chose something that would be an academic degree as well as a practical degree – that’s where the Historic Preservation comes in, and so not only do I have the background for doing custom woodworking in a modern sense with cabinetry and furniture, but I also have the very traditional skills and background from the very heavy timber framing and the traditional construction.” 

IMG_8657.jpg

You can see a little bit for yourself just what a lovely guy David is in person, and also get a glimpse of the stables that he built, and his workshop. Why do I keep thinking of that hilarious carpenter line in “Meet the Parents”?!



If you’d like to contact David about any of his work, or to commission a piece, you can email him at [email protected], or check out his website, www.DAStubbsWoodcrafting.com. In the meantime, you can meet Scout who keeps David company while he works, and see what he’s working on for eventer Lauren Lambert, ( AND he’s even refurbishing her old trunk for her so she has something to tide her over in the interim).





Many thanks to David for his time. It was such a pleasure to meet him, and to see such beautiful, custom, handmade work – exactly as he described, the perfect marriage between the contemporary and the traditional.  Wishing him and Mara much luck and success, and wondering what he’ll think of next…! Go Eventing!

David Stubbs – Woodcrafting and so much more

By on Jul 10, 2011 8:34 pm -
Lexington and the University of Kentucky have a reputation for attracting talent to the area – think John Calipari and the Wildcats, Dr Pearse Lyons and Alltech – and David Stubbs is no exception. At just 23 years old, he’s already in demand as a master craftsman of quality custom made tack trunks, cabinets, kitchens, bathrooms, stalls, barns…anything you can dream of made in wood!  
IMG_8664.jpg
He was recruited here a couple of years ago by the Historic Preservation Program at UK as their graduate research assistant, and tells me it wasn’t that hard of a sell to persuade his dressage rider fiancee, Mara Rice, to relocate.  Since then, he’s been hard at work building Mara a barn, completing a walk-in closet for a lucky customer in Asheville, N Carolina, and a full cherry kitchen in Washington DC amongst many other things. No small wonder then that he just has to find the time to write his thesis before he can complete his Masters at UK! 
IMG_8653.jpg
David built this trunk for Mara about six years ago, and it gets used daily with no special care. It was used as a display at WEG, he just polished it up, and it looked as good as new. It’s crafted from maple wood, stained on the outside, and has the bandage rack a grooming kit, and tray, and all trunks come standard with wheels. Typically from the first contact with David,  a trunk might take about 4- 6 weeks to make, and one with all the extras like the one above would run about $1,500.
Despite being a clean-cut 23 years old, David has been in the business for ten years already; he told me with a grin that he sold outdoor furniture in middle school, and he built this beautiful, and yes, functional, boat that was hanging from the rafters when he was in high school. 

IMG_8672.jpg

When I asked him if it was just for show, anyone else might have been insulted, but David is far too nice, and just laughed, and told me he couldn’t remember exactly, but he thinks he used over a hundred different cedar strips on it.  He explained how it all started,

“Ever since I was young, and realised I could make money doing what I loved, is when I realised that I wanted to own a woodworking business. I’ve always wanted to be involved in design, construction, and just making something that makes the customer happy. So for my degree I chose something that would be an academic degree as well as a practical degree – that’s where the Historic Preservation comes in, and so not only do I have the background for doing custom woodworking in a modern sense with cabinetry and furniture, but I also have the very traditional skills and background from the very heavy timber framing and the traditional construction.” 

IMG_8657.jpg

You can see a little bit for yourself just what a lovely guy David is in person, and also get a glimpse of the stables that he built, and his workshop. Why do I keep thinking of that hilarious carpenter line in “Meet the Parents”?!




If you’d like to contact David about any of his work, or to commission a piece, you can email him at [email protected], or check out his website, www.DAStubbsWoodcrafting.com. In the meantime, you can meet Scout who keeps David company while he works, and see what he’s working on for eventer Lauren Lambert, ( AND he’s even refurbishing her old trunk for her so she has something to tide her over in the interim).




Many thanks to David for his time. It was such a pleasure to meet him, and to see such beautiful, custom, handmade work – exactly as he described, the perfect marriage between the contemporary and the traditional.  Wishing him and Mara much luck and success, and wondering what he’ll think of next…! Go Eventing!


Area 8 Young Riders Camp

By on Jul 7, 2011 1:28 pm -

IMG_8505.jpg

Summer Camp (spot the instructor Dorothy Crowell!)

Area 8 comprises Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania – a large and horsey swathe of the United States, so I was surprised to discover that not many of its members were taking advantage of the Young Riders Camp held last week at Masterson Station Park. Even more so, when co-ordinator Liz Estes explained to me exactly what was on offer, (and I was wondering how young I could pass myself off for!)

“At the camp they’ve had a flat lesson, they’ve had a conditioning hack, they’re doing a stadium lesson today, and a cross country pace lesson with Robin. Tomorrow Wayne Quarles (dressage judge) is coming to watch them ride their dressage test, they’ll get input and then ride their test again, and then in the afternoon they’ll have a stadium test, and then on their last day they’ll do a cross country schoool.” 

The ten campers boarded their horses at the venue all week, and shared two paddocks for the duration. They were responsible for figuring out times and sharing, and also turning up for all lessons on time, tacked up, warmed up and in correct gear, which Liz told me they all did splendidly.  

IMG_8571.jpg
Young Riders can range in age from 12 -22 ( I might be pushing it!) but Liz tells me the camp is open to all levels, 

“There’s been this huge misconception that you don’t join Young Riders until you’re at least doing Training or Prelim, because the Championships are one star and two star level, but these are novice kids ready to move to training and we had a morning group at solid beginner novice, and they’re getting their basics, learning about the programme, and then maybe in four years time they’ll be riding at that level. W’e’re really trying to get the younger riders” 

IMG_8562.jpg

IMG_8556.jpg
Robin watching Katie doing her cross country pace lesson
Robin Walker, who usually rides at least a dozen or so horses at each event, must have appreciated the change of pace. I really liked his teaching style, much like his riding – quiet, efficient and sympathetic, he draws on years of experience yet keeps it all simple and easy to understand, and easy to process. I talked to him afterwards about teaching younger riders today, and also asked him about his lovely mare Florenz, who won the CCI* at the Florida Horse Park in April.
I also caught up with Katie back at the barn. 
Off camera, the girls told me that they’re all really enjoying camp. Once they’ve finished their chores for the day, I asked them what they do, and the answer was unanimous,  – “sit around and talk about boys!”  There was one boy at camp, Woods Baughman, on his lovely horse Trucker who everyone was also talking about longingly! 
IMG_8516.jpg
Understandably bashful, the only boy at camp, Woods Baughman on the lovely Trucker!
The kids and I came away inspired, and I can also let slip that Lily, Harry and Leo the very greedy Labrador thoroughly endorse the food – all meals and snacks are included in the price of camp. For more information click here, and I suggest you sign up early for next year! Thanks for reading as always, Happy Camping, and Go Eventing!

Area 8 Young Riders Camp

By on Jul 7, 2011 1:15 pm -

IMG_8505.jpg

Summer Camp (spot the instructor Dorothy Crowell!)

Area 8 comprises Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania – a large and horsey swathe of the United States, so I was surprised to discover that not many of its members were taking advantage of the Young Riders Camp held last week at Masterson Station Park. Even more so, when co-ordinator Liz Estes explained to me exactly what was on offer, (and I was wondering how young I could pass myself off for!)

“At the camp they’ve had a flat lesson, they’ve had a conditioning hack, they’re doing a stadium lesson today, and a cross country pace lesson with Robin. Tomorrow Wayne Quarles (dressage judge) is coming to watch them ride their dressage test, they’ll get input and then ride their test again, and then in the afternoon they’ll have a stadium test, and then on their last day they’ll do a cross country schoool.” 

The ten campers boarded their horses at the venue all week, and shared two paddocks for the duration. They were responsible for figuring out times and sharing, and also turning up for all lessons on time, tacked up, warmed up and in correct gear, which Liz told me they all did splendidly.  

IMG_8571.jpg
Young Riders can range in age from 12 -22 ( I might be pushing it!) but Liz tells me the camp is open to all levels, 

“There’s been this huge misconception that you don’t join Young Riders until you’re at least doing Training or Prelim, because the Championships are one star and two star level, but these are novice kids ready to move to training and we had a morning group at solid beginner novice, and they’re getting their basics, learning about the programme, and then maybe in four years time they’ll be riding at that level. W’e’re really trying to get the younger riders” 

IMG_8562.jpg

IMG_8556.jpg
Robin watching Katie doing her cross country pace lesson
Robin Walker, who usually rides at least a dozen or so horses at each event, must have appreciated the change of pace. I really liked his teaching style, much like his riding – quiet, efficient and sympathetic, he draws on years of experience yet keeps it all simple and easy to understand, and easy to process. I talked to him afterwards about teaching younger riders today, and also asked him about his lovely mare Florenz, who won the CCI* at the Florida Horse Park in April.
I also caught up with Katie back at the barn. 
Off camera, the girls told me that they’re all really enjoying camp. Once they’ve finished their chores for the day, I asked them what they do, and the answer was unanimous,  – “sit around and talk about boys!”  There was one boy at camp, Woods Baughman, on his lovely horse Trucker who everyone was also talking about longingly! 
IMG_8516.jpg
Understandably bashful, the only boy at camp, Woods Baughman on the lovely Trucker!
The kids and I came away inspired, and I can also let slip that Lily, Harry and Leo the very greedy Labrador thoroughly endorse the food – all meals and snacks are included in the price of camp. For more information click here, and I suggest you sign up early for next year! Thanks for reading as always, Happy Camping, and Go Eventing!
This artcle is also posted on SmanthaLClark.com

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy & Helping the TPF Fire Victims, part 2

By on Jul 3, 2011 10:07 am -

This part 2 of our article on Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy and how it is helping the horses recovering from the True Prospect Fire.  Click here for part 1 from yesterday, where we spoke with Dr Slovis from Hagyard.  In part 2 we hear from Caitlin SiIliman about the True Prospect horses who are benefiting from the therapy and from Bruce Jackson who runs the Fair Hill Hyperbaric Chamber.

Caitlin told me Neville Bardos especially seems to be quite taken with the Hyperbaric Chamber!

“They do enjoy it, I think it’s quite relaxing, and it’s nice and cool in there, I think it probably goes to about 60 degrees. They can see us out of the window, and Neville – the oxygen comes out of these little holes in the bottom, and as soon as Neville gets in there he puts his nose right down to the hole and sucks all of the oxygen off out of it! It’s pretty funny how he figured it out! We sedated them a tiny bit the first couple of times, because it’s a little bit bigger than a stall, but it’s a round stall and there’s only a small window that they can see out of, and it makes a bit of a hissing noise when you first turn it on. Now, though, they haven’t been sedated for a long time, and they’re so relaxed doing it, and the barn is beautiful, and they get to wait in this beautiful stall. It’s a bit of a social actitivity for them; Neville’s back to work now but my mare’s on stall rest and I think she actually enjoys going because it breaks her day up a bit, gives a little activity.”
hoku body 2.jpg
Hoku after 14 treatments.jpg
Hoku before and after 14 treatments in the Hyperbaric Chamber.
 

Caitlin travels both horses about half an hour to the Fair Hill Training Center, the site of the event, where Bruce and Amy Jackson run the state of the art Equine Therapy Centre.  Bruce told me that alongside the Hyperbaric Chamber, he also has a number of other treatments available,

“We also have a cold salt-water spa, which is very, very cold salt water that the horses stand in to treat their lower legs. We have an underwater treadmill, which is really a high-resistance, low-impact workout for horses that have some ailments, and we also have a brand new vibration therapy floor which improves bone density and stimulates circulation through the horse”.
Although traditionally racehorses have made up the bulk of Bruce’s business, he says he’s gradually increasing the sport horse side of things. Bruce has experience with both, as he evented in England for some time, before training racehorses over here in the States. Bruce has had the Hyperbaric Chamber at Fair Hill for about three years, and says that although it’s among the most expensive of what he has to offer, the results are tremendous. 
“We did some research and we were following the great results that you were getting in Kentucky, and we felt that it was something that we could provide for the horse industry in this part of the world, and provide a service, and it really has been a tremendous tool.”
Since embarking on the Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment, Neville has had regular scopes on his trachea, and the improvement has been astounding. The plan is for the horses to have 20 treatments in total; they went every day for the first dozen treatments which have now been completed; they’ll go every other day for the next six treatments, and then they’ll do the remaining two treatments three days apart.  Since so many people have asked, Caitlin told me insurance will cover it but unfortunately Neville is not insured, and Hoku’s insurance money was already used up at New Bolton. Caitlin wanted to acknowledge all the tremendous fund raising efforts that have helped to raise so much money, and said she’s incredibly moved and grateful. 
calcuttateam.jpg
The Calcutta Team Auction at Bromont to raise money for the TPF fire victims
According to Caitlin, the horses are all recovering well,
“They’re all really good. Neville’s back in light work, Silva flatted him yesterday, just lightly, we’re being very, very cautious – he jogged for a week and now he’s doing light flat work. Otis is hacking.  Min, unfortunately, came home from New Bolton and went back and had to have colic surgery, he’s staying at New Bolton because it’s a big recovery coming back from colic surgery, and we sent Rose over to Courtney Cooper’s to sell, because we’d actually had her for sale for a while, and Courtney just sold her last week, so she’s off to a new home.” 
I asked Caitlin how she and the rest of her non-equine team are bearing up?
“We’re good. We’re busy again which is wonderful. There was a bit of an odd week or two where I was spending a lot of my time at New Bolton, between the horses being there, and then we didn’t have that many left here at home; the couple that were left were on a bit of a summer vacation so we had a weird lag time where there wasn’t much to do, we were doing a lot of re-organising.  Now we’re busy again, we’re full up. We’ve got 24 horses right now and we’re really busy so we’re slowly getting back to normal the further we get away from the fire. Phillip and Evie had a grief counsellor come out and talk to all of us as a group which was actually interesting to talk to everyone together, and then he spoke to Ryan, Lillian and I individually too which was very helpful.” 
Caitlin and I talked about this a little more, and she told me that it’s hard to move on, that’s she’s still grieving for the others who lost horses in the fire, and that it’s put everything into perspective. She also said that although she & Ryan couldn’t care less about all their personal belongings, their clothes, etc that they lost in the apartment and that can be replaced, there are some things that were special,
“Ryan and I lost all of our horse pictures, and he lost his family pictures from Australia, and I was actually looking online at different photographers yesterday thinking I might have to  buy some more pictures to put up in our new place.”
Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos of Catlin or Ryan, otherwise I would gladly send her enough to wallpaper her apartment with! I’d like to extend my heartfelt thanks to her for chatting with me, and also my admiration for continued strength and resilience. We’ll continue to bring you updates of their recovery, and I hope to take tons of photos of them all competing again soon.  Massive thanks also to Dr Nathan Slovis and Hagyard Equine Medical Institute and of course Bruce Jackson at Fair Hill Equine Therapy Center, check out his website, you can watch videos of all the different treatments, pretty cool! Thank you for reading as always, go safely, and go eventing.
Otis.jpg
Otis at Red Hills this spring

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy & Helping the TPF Fire Victims, part 2

By on Jul 3, 2011 10:05 am -

This part 2 of our article on Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy and how it is helping the horses recovering from the True Prospect Fire.  Click here for part 1 from yesterday, where we spoke with Dr Slovis from Hagyard.  In part 2 we hear from Caitlin SiIliman about the True Prospect horses who are benefiting from the therapy and from Bruce Jackson who runs the Fair Hill Hyperbaric Chamber.

Caitlin told me Neville Bardos especially seems to be quite taken with the Hyperbaric Chamber!

“They do enjoy it, I think it’s quite relaxing, and it’s nice and cool in there, I think it probably goes to about 60 degrees. They can see us out of the window, and Neville – the oxygen comes out of these little holes in the bottom, and as soon as Neville gets in there he puts his nose right down to the hole and sucks all of the oxygen off out of it! It’s pretty funny how he figured it out! We sedated them a tiny bit the first couple of times, because it’s a little bit bigger than a stall, but it’s a round stall and there’s only a small window that they can see out of, and it makes a bit of a hissing noise when you first turn it on. Now, though, they haven’t been sedated for a long time, and they’re so relaxed doing it, and the barn is beautiful, and they get to wait in this beautiful stall. It’s a bit of a social actitivity for them; Neville’s back to work now but my mare’s on stall rest and I think she actually enjoys going because it breaks her day up a bit, gives a little activity.”
hoku body 2.jpg
Hoku after 14 treatments.jpg
Hoku before and after 14 treatments in the Hyperbaric Chamber.
 

Caitlin travels both horses about half an hour to the Fair Hill Training Center, the site of the event, where Bruce and Amy Jackson run the state of the art Equine Therapy Centre.  Bruce told me that alongside the Hyperbaric Chamber, he also has a number of other treatments available,

“We also have a cold salt-water spa, which is very, very cold salt water that the horses stand in to treat their lower legs. We have an underwater treadmill, which is really a high-resistance, low-impact workout for horses that have some ailments, and we also have a brand new vibration therapy floor which improves bone density and stimulates circulation through the horse”.
Although traditionally racehorses have made up the bulk of Bruce’s business, he says he’s gradually increasing the sport horse side of things. Bruce has experience with both, as he evented in England for some time, before training racehorses over here in the States. Bruce has had the Hyperbaric Chamber at Fair Hill for about three years, and says that although it’s among the most expensive of what he has to offer, the results are tremendous. 
“We did some research and we were following the great results that you were getting in Kentucky, and we felt that it was something that we could provide for the horse industry in this part of the world, and provide a service, and it really has been a tremendous tool.”
Since embarking on the Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment, Neville has had regular scopes on his trachea, and the improvement has been astounding. The plan is for the horses to have 20 treatments in total; they went every day for the first dozen treatments which have now been completed; they’ll go every other day for the next six treatments, and then they’ll do the remaining two treatments three days apart.  Since so many people have asked, Caitlin told me insurance will cover it but unfortunately Neville is not insured, and Hoku’s insurance money was already used up at New Bolton. Caitlin wanted to acknowledge all the tremendous fund raising efforts that have helped to raise so much money, and said she’s incredibly moved and grateful. 
calcuttateam.jpg
The Calcutta Team Auction at Bromont to raise money for the TPF fire victims
According to Caitlin, the horses are all recovering well,
“They’re all really good. Neville’s back in light work, Silva flatted him yesterday, just lightly, we’re being very, very cautious – he jogged for a week and now he’s doing light flat work. Otis is hacking.  Min, unfortunately, came home from New Bolton and went back and had to have colic surgery, he’s staying at New Bolton because it’s a big recovery coming back from colic surgery, and we sent Rose over to Courtney Cooper’s to sell, because we’d actually had her for sale for a while, and Courtney just sold her last week, so she’s off to a new home.” 
I asked Caitlin how she and the rest of her non-equine team are bearing up?
“We’re good. We’re busy again which is wonderful. There was a bit of an odd week or two where I was spending a lot of my time at New Bolton, between the horses being there, and then we didn’t have that many left here at home; the couple that were left were on a bit of a summer vacation so we had a weird lag time where there wasn’t much to do, we were doing a lot of re-organising.  Now we’re busy again, we’re full up. We’ve got 24 horses right now and we’re really busy so we’re slowly getting back to normal the further we get away from the fire. Phillip and Evie had a grief counsellor come out and talk to all of us as a group which was actually interesting to talk to everyone together, and then he spoke to Ryan, Lillian and I individually too which was very helpful.” 
Caitlin and I talked about this a little more, and she told me that it’s hard to move on, that’s she’s still grieving for the others who lost horses in the fire, and that it’s put everything into perspective. She also said that although she & Ryan couldn’t care less about all their personal belongings, their clothes, etc that they lost in the apartment and that can be replaced, there are some things that were special,
“Ryan and I lost all of our horse pictures, and he lost his family pictures from Australia, and I was actually looking online at different photographers yesterday thinking I might have to  buy some more pictures to put up in our new place.”
Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos of Catlin or Ryan, otherwise I would gladly send her enough to wallpaper her apartment with! I’d like to extend my heartfelt thanks to her for chatting with me, and also my admiration for continued strength and resilience. We’ll continue to bring you updates of their recovery, and I hope to take tons of photos of them all competing again soon.  Massive thanks also to Dr Nathan Slovis and Hagyard Equine Medical Institute and of course Bruce Jackson at Fair Hill Equine Therapy Center, check out his website, you can watch videos of all the different treatments, pretty cool! Thank you for reading as always, go safely, and go eventing.
Otis.jpg
Otis at Red Hills this spring

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy & Helping the TPF Fire Victims, part 1

By on Jul 2, 2011 5:24 pm -

DSC_8164.jpg

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.

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy & Helping the TPF Fire Victims, part 1

By on Jul 2, 2011 5:20 pm -

DSC_8164.jpg

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.

Will Connell – World Class

By on Jul 1, 2011 2:36 pm -
BEF .jpg

I had the immense pleasure of spending some time scurrying after the British Equestrian Federation’s Performance Director, Will Connell during the World Equestrian Games here at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington last year, and saw for myself exactly what the job description couldn’t possibly encompass! For starters, although Will’s “day job” is running the  World Class programmes for the four Olympic Equestrian disciplines (PDF), (Jumping, Dressage, Eventing and Para), during the WEG he actually took on the role of chef de mission for all eight disciplines. 

Incredibly hard-working, with an eye for detail, it must be one of the most exhaustive and exhausting positions in the sport. Will is literally the first of the team personnel to arrive at the venue, and probably one of the last to leave, and once the day’s work is done, more often than not he’ll be at a “working” dinner. When your eye sweeps over the British barns without really taking much in, except that it all looks ship-shape, that’s because Will, and his advance crew have been in there taking care of every last detail, eg. painting the inside of the stalls if they deem it necessary, (they did in Kentucky!), making sure they have the right adapters for the kettle so they can make tea in the “tack room”, leaving absolutely no stone unturned; it’s that kind of OCD that helps win medals! 
IMG_5599.jpg
As wonderful as the World Equestrian Games were for Great Britain last year – the eventers’ team gold and individual silver, the dressage team and individual silver, the vaulting gold, the para gold…and with a wheelbarrow full of medals since he took on the position in October 2003, Will still feels the pressure of living from Championship to Championship,
“Our pinnacle is the Olympic Games, we work on a four year cycle so I suppose that’s where the most likely change would come, but I’m employed full-time, subject to funding continuing, so if the funding stops then my job becomes redundant.  I’ll do it for as long as I suppose I still feel I can offer something and they still want me. If it all goes horribly wrong in London, they might decide they don’t want me anymore! People always ask me what I’m going to do after London, and I suppose you always have to wake up after an Olympic Games and think, ‘Can I keep driving this forward for another four years?’ “
 I ask Will if the reason he never takes holidays is because he’s just one of those people who genuinely doesn’t enjoy them, and he laughs, and tells me I’m wrong, but this was the man who flew directly from the World Games on an overnight flight to a morning meeting and hit the ground running! 
“I don’t like failure. I always try and take a little break each year, but I am quite driven to keep everything moving. I have a lot of very good people who work with me. There’s a performance manager in each of the four Olympic disciplines who look after that discipline, then within each discipline there’s the performance programme -the here and now, then there’s the development programme which is for future athletes/riders, and then we run an equine pathway where we try and identify horses with Championship potential earlier on in their careers. So we run three programmes in the three Olympic disciplines; in the Para’s we don’t run an Equine Pathway because we have people out there trying to identify the right horse for the right rider. There’s a lot of great people out there working with me; we have a very strong team right here in the office, there’s four of us full-time here, and we have quite a good work output!”
IMG_4825.jpg
Of course, a lot of Will’s work is done outside the office – at competitions & training days; he must have the memory of a RAM chip because he knows little details and quirks about random horses and riders across the board – Pippa Roome, you could be in trouble at next year’s Badminton, I think we may have found you a worthy opponent in the Ultimate Eventing Mastermind, and imagine if we extended it to Greenwich for an Olympic Edition?! In what’s becoming a habit, Will laughs, and tells me I’m wrong, again!
“My memory isn’t as good as it should be, but I’m very lucky that I get to see the sport a lot. I see these horses quite often, which is great, and you remember things about them, but I’m not the expert by any means – that’s the performance managers and the coaches that work with them. Obviously I see the horses compete, and you remember them, especially the top ones, but I’m not that great about remembering nuances about each horse. It’s a team effort, all of us working together, my job isn’t direct contact with the riders and horses, I’m not a coach, never have been and never will be. My job is to manage and lead the programme as a whole, and to make sure that when it comes to things like WEG and the Olympics, the support structure for the team is in pretty good standing.“
This meant that at the last Olympics in Beijing (but Hong Kong for the Equestrian) Will spent 60 days at the venue,
“I think it’s important to get to a Championships as early as possible. It doesn’t matter how good the pre-Championship communication is, there’s always things that have changed slightly, and you need to be on the ground to deal with that, so I like to get there early. The thing with Hong Kong was there wasn’t a huge gap between the Olympics and the Paralympics; by the time we’d sent the last Olympic person home, the advance party were beginning to arrive for the paras, so it was quite a long time.”
Part of the support structure is that all-important Great British Team Spirit, although, I’m wrong again, we don’t call it that…!
“One of the things that we work very hard on is that we don’t call it team atmosphere, but rather team environment. It’s not like in a rugby team or soccer team where players have to pass a ball to each other and understand each other; it’s a collection of individual performances that give us the team result, but it’s important that people feel comfortable within their team environment. For example, if you’ve got someone who likes to sit in their room and read a book then they should feel comfortable doing that, and everyone else should respect them for that being their wish, but if they want to stick together and go swimming together, then that should also be their opportunity to do that.”
” Something else that we work very hard on is what we call the Golden Hour, which is, both for horses and for humans, that first hour, when people arrive, which is another reason I try and get there early. In a major Championships there’ll always be things that go wrong, there’ll always be frustrations, there’ll always be ups and downs in the performance, that’s inevitable; but if you ensure that the arrival process is smooth and comfortable, and everyone’s rooms are ready, the stables are ready, everything’s in the right place, and then before they know it they’re through the airport, in their room, unpacked – it gets everything off on the right foot. So the Golden Hour for us is very important, and the Team Environment, and really you want to get to the point where the riders and the key staff such as coaches, vets etc don’t have to think about anything except doing their job. That’s what we work very hard on. Appearance is important, having a team uniform is important, and other teams do that – look at the Dutch, they do it very well with the Dutch Orange across all their sports. We expect the riders to deliver faultless performances so why shouldn’t we, supporting the riders?”


IMG_1314.jpg
Next week will be the Test Event for the all-important 2012 London Olympics, and I asked Will about the significance of the competition, and how important the results would be,
“Of course I want them to do well, we’ve got three very good riders going there – William Fox-Pitt, Piggy French and Pippa Funnell. When we went out the Test Event in Hong Kong in 2007, the aim was really to learn as much as possible about what effect the journey and the climate would have on the horses, so we selected the horses. We selected three horses: a very light one, an average weight one, and a heavier one, so that we could look at the effect on the horses, and the riders kind of came with them. Also they were away for quite a period of time, nearly three weeks, so it was difficult to send the top riders out at that time of year, and be away with one 2* horse for that length of time. So the aim for Hong Kong was to gather as much data about the horses. For London, it’s about understanding as much as we can about the venue, about the topography, the hills on the cross country..and so we want the riders who can give us the very best feedback, and hence why we’ve selected top riders. Also it’s good experience for them ahead of next year to have had a spin around the venue.”
“For us, the Test Event is to learn as much as we can about the venue and how it works, and to check out our logistics plan for next year. We also want to give as many people as possible access to the venue to have a look at it, although what we’ll be seeing next week is different, it’s a lot smaller in scale to what we’ll be seeing next year, but I think people will still get a feel for it. We are sending nearly all our World Class riders to observe.” 
In between now and the Olympics however, Great Britain has a chance at more medals – the European Championships at Luhmuhlen. Will this be used as a stepping stone for London, or is it important in it’s own right?
“We will try and select, this year, as good a team as we can, but the primary aim is to win next year. A lot will depend on form, soundness, fitness, perceived benefit of going to Luhmuhlen which is primarily a flat course, and Greenwich certainly isn’t, but I have to say the work they’ve done on the going on the cross country course at Luhmuhlen is outstanding, because we were out there a couple of weeks ago and they really deserve credit for it.  It may be that the selectors look at giving someone Championship experience ahead of next year, that’s certainly not an impossibility; what they’re not going to do is drag someone up from 23rd on the list to put them in the team to give them a run for next year! They’re going to select from that top group of people, and yet it’s not impossible that conversations might take place with a rider and decisions might be made not to save the horse for next year, but we certainly want to win medals this year too.”
Once again, Will disagrees with me, albeit kindly, (!) when I mention, somewhat wistfully, the depth of talent in Great Britain,
“I think if you look at the Germans, they probably have more depth currently in Eventing, than we have. Certainly we need more depth in show-jumping. In dressage we have four or five very good ones at the top, but I think saying we have depth across the disciplines is perhaps over-stating it a little bit! Like most nations, we have our top group, and we’re a little bit hoping they’re going to stay straight. We do have a lot of great riders in this country but we need the really top horses if we’re going to win medals. In jumping, I think by next year there’ll be ten or twelve teams that will be in with a chance of medals. In Eventing, certainly the competition for gold and silver is going to be very, very tight. In Dressage it’s not just the British, Dutch and the Germans, there are some other nations coming up with some good horses. It’s going to be a really heavy-duty competition next year.”
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I ask Will how the Olympics being on home turf will add to the pressure next year,
“I think there will definitely be a home advantage, but I think people also underestimate the disadvantages, and the extra pressure that brings – ask some of the Americans how they felt competing at WEG last year? The pressure from the press will be enormous, and is already cranking up. There’s a lot of extra work that comes with a home competition because I want it to be a successful Games as much as anybody else. The reputation of Great Britain is hanging on it. Our job in terms of the Programme is to help everyone prepare for the pressures we can’t control, and subdue the pressures we can, so we’ve been working on that for a couple of years now: Identify what you can control and control it, and identify what you can’t and learn to deal with it!” 

This philosophy has stood Will in good stead in his many travels from show to show,
“People say to me how lucky I am that I get to travel so much, but more often than not you go from the airport, in a taxi to the venue, to the hotel, to the venue, to the hotel, and then back to the airport and away again.  I do now try and make a point of seeing something of the local area that I’m in, but I have to say I  think there should be two different kinds of airports – one for tourists and one for people on business! It’s fun though, and I’m very privileged, I get to see the top horses and riders in the world in each of the disciplines around the world, mainly Europe. I’d love to go to Wellington, for the Winter Equestrian Festival, I’ve never been down there, and I’ve never been to Australia or New Zealand and I’d love to go and watch some eventing over there because they’ve produced some such great riders, it would be great to go and see.”
So when he looks back on his tenure so far, what are his happiest memories of the job, I wonder?
“I think some of the results last year at WEG for Britain were amazing, and funnily enough, if I had to single one out, I’d say Joanne Eccles in the vaulting. Vaulting doesn’t get the funding that the Olympic disciplines and the paralympics do, and the Eccles family had a four year plan and it worked. When you see it all going well, and you see people winning it’s a great feeling. It’s also a great feeling when you come back and everything that you’ve organised has gone well; I think that our plan worked well last year, in difficult circumstances sometimes, and that’s a pretty good feeling. Then there’s been amazingly good, fun evenings and moments with people which have been either very rewarding, or very amusing, and I’ve met a great bunch of people, and I’ve had one or two dinners that have just been nights of laughter!”

Finally, I ask Will, or perhaps I plead with him, what plans does he have for the day after the Olympics next year? Surely a holiday, right? Escape somewhere? 
“If it’s gone well I’ll be trying to work out how we can replicate that in Rio, and if it’s gone not so well, I’ll be trying to work out what we need to do better.  The Rio planning has started already though, I had my first visit there in March, so that’s underway, and I go again in November.” 
Will is making me nervous that I’m wasting his time, even though he’s been incredibly polite and patient with me. Apart from refusing to take credit for anything in a rather typical British manner, (which I’m sure he’d disagree with me!) he’s been an absolute pleasure to talk to; I’d like to thank him very much for his time, and wish all of Team GB continued success at the Europeans, but most importantly in London next year. Thank you as always for reading. Go GB and Go eventing!

Will Connell – World Class

By on Jul 1, 2011 2:32 pm -
BEF .jpg

I had the immense pleasure of spending some time scurrying after the British Equestrian Federation’s Performance Director, Will Connell during the World Equestrian Games here at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington last year, and saw for myself exactly what the job description couldn’t possibly encompass! For starters, although Will’s “day job” is running the  World Class programmes for the four Olympic Equestrian disciplines (PDF), (Jumping, Dressage, Eventing and Para), during the WEG he actually took on the role of chef de mission for all eight disciplines. 

Incredibly hard-working, with an eye for detail, it must be one of the most exhaustive and exhausting positions in the sport. Will is literally the first of the team personnel to arrive at the venue, and probably one of the last to leave, and once the day’s work is done, more often than not he’ll be at a “working” dinner. When your eye sweeps over the British barns without really taking much in, except that it all looks ship-shape, that’s because Will, and his advance crew have been in there taking care of every last detail, eg. painting the inside of the stalls if they deem it necessary, (they did in Kentucky!), making sure they have the right adapters for the kettle so they can make tea in the “tack room”, leaving absolutely no stone unturned; it’s that kind of OCD that helps win medals! 
IMG_5599.jpg
As wonderful as the World Equestrian Games were for Great Britain last year – the eventers’ team gold and individual silver, the dressage team and individual silver, the vaulting gold, the para gold…and with a wheelbarrow full of medals since he took on the position in October 2003, Will still feels the pressure of living from Championship to Championship,
“Our pinnacle is the Olympic Games, we work on a four year cycle so I suppose that’s where the most likely change would come, but I’m employed full-time, subject to funding continuing, so if the funding stops then my job becomes redundant.  I’ll do it for as long as I suppose I still feel I can offer something and they still want me. If it all goes horribly wrong in London, they might decide they don’t want me anymore! People always ask me what I’m going to do after London, and I suppose you always have to wake up after an Olympic Games and think, ‘Can I keep driving this forward for another four years?’ “
 I ask Will if the reason he never takes holidays is because he’s just one of those people who genuinely doesn’t enjoy them, and he laughs, and tells me I’m wrong, but this was the man who flew directly from the World Games on an overnight flight to a morning meeting and hit the ground running! 
“I don’t like failure. I always try and take a little break each year, but I am quite driven to keep everything moving. I have a lot of very good people who work with me. There’s a performance manager in each of the four Olympic disciplines who look after that discipline, then within each discipline there’s the performance programme -the here and now, then there’s the development programme which is for future athletes/riders, and then we run an equine pathway where we try and identify horses with Championship potential earlier on in their careers. So we run three programmes in the three Olympic disciplines; in the Para’s we don’t run an Equine Pathway because we have people out there trying to identify the right horse for the right rider. There’s a lot of great people out there working with me; we have a very strong team right here in the office, there’s four of us full-time here, and we have quite a good work output!”
IMG_4825.jpg
Of course, a lot of Will’s work is done outside the office – at competitions & training days; he must have the memory of a RAM chip because he knows little details and quirks about random horses and riders across the board – Pippa Roome, you could be in trouble at next year’s Badminton, I think we may have found you a worthy opponent in the Ultimate Eventing Mastermind, and imagine if we extended it to Greenwich for an Olympic Edition?! In what’s becoming a habit, Will laughs, and tells me I’m wrong, again!
“My memory isn’t as good as it should be, but I’m very lucky that I get to see the sport a lot. I see these horses quite often, which is great, and you remember things about them, but I’m not the expert by any means – that’s the performance managers and the coaches that work with them. Obviously I see the horses compete, and you remember them, especially the top ones, but I’m not that great about remembering nuances about each horse. It’s a team effort, all of us working together, my job isn’t direct contact with the riders and horses, I’m not a coach, never have been and never will be. My job is to manage and lead the programme as a whole, and to make sure that when it comes to things like WEG and the Olympics, the support structure for the team is in pretty good standing.“
This meant that at the last Olympics in Beijing (but Hong Kong for the Equestrian) Will spent 60 days at the venue,
“I think it’s important to get to a Championships as early as possible. It doesn’t matter how good the pre-Championship communication is, there’s always things that have changed slightly, and you need to be on the ground to deal with that, so I like to get there early. The thing with Hong Kong was there wasn’t a huge gap between the Olympics and the Paralympics; by the time we’d sent the last Olympic person home, the advance party were beginning to arrive for the paras, so it was quite a long time.”
Part of the support structure is that all-important Great British Team Spirit, although, I’m wrong again, we don’t call it that…!
“One of the things that we work very hard on is that we don’t call it team atmosphere, but rather team environment. It’s not like in a rugby team or soccer team where players have to pass a ball to each other and understand each other; it’s a collection of individual performances that give us the team result, but it’s important that people feel comfortable within their team environment. For example, if you’ve got someone who likes to sit in their room and read a book then they should feel comfortable doing that, and everyone else should respect them for that being their wish, but if they want to stick together and go swimming together, then that should also be their opportunity to do that.”
” Something else that we work very hard on is what we call the Golden Hour, which is, both for horses and for humans, that first hour, when people arrive, which is another reason I try and get there early. In a major Championships there’ll always be things that go wrong, there’ll always be frustrations, there’ll always be ups and downs in the performance, that’s inevitable; but if you ensure that the arrival process is smooth and comfortable, and everyone’s rooms are ready, the stables are ready, everything’s in the right place, and then before they know it they’re through the airport, in their room, unpacked – it gets everything off on the right foot. So the Golden Hour for us is very important, and the Team Environment, and really you want to get to the point where the riders and the key staff such as coaches, vets etc don’t have to think about anything except doing their job. That’s what we work very hard on. Appearance is important, having a team uniform is important, and other teams do that – look at the Dutch, they do it very well with the Dutch Orange across all their sports. We expect the riders to deliver faultless performances so why shouldn’t we, supporting the riders?”


IMG_1314.jpg
Next week will be the Test Event for the all-important 2012 London Olympics, and I asked Will about the significance of the competition, and how important the results would be,
“Of course I want them to do well, we’ve got three very good riders going there – William Fox-Pitt, Piggy French and Pippa Funnell. When we went out the Test Event in Hong Kong in 2007, the aim was really to learn as much as possible about what effect the journey and the climate would have on the horses, so we selected the horses. We selected three horses: a very light one, an average weight one, and a heavier one, so that we could look at the effect on the horses, and the riders kind of came with them. Also they were away for quite a period of time, nearly three weeks, so it was difficult to send the top riders out at that time of year, and be away with one 2* horse for that length of time. So the aim for Hong Kong was to gather as much data about the horses. For London, it’s about understanding as much as we can about the venue, about the topography, the hills on the cross country..and so we want the riders who can give us the very best feedback, and hence why we’ve selected top riders. Also it’s good experience for them ahead of next year to have had a spin around the venue.”
“For us, the Test Event is to learn as much as we can about the venue and how it works, and to check out our logistics plan for next year. We also want to give as many people as possible access to the venue to have a look at it, although what we’ll be seeing next week is different, it’s a lot smaller in scale to what we’ll be seeing next year, but I think people will still get a feel for it. We are sending nearly all our World Class riders to observe.” 
In between now and the Olympics however, Great Britain has a chance at more medals – the European Championships at Luhmuhlen. Will this be used as a stepping stone for London, or is it important in it’s own right?
“We will try and select, this year, as good a team as we can, but the primary aim is to win next year. A lot will depend on form, soundness, fitness, perceived benefit of going to Luhmuhlen which is primarily a flat course, and Greenwich certainly isn’t, but I have to say the work they’ve done on the going on the cross country course at Luhmuhlen is outstanding, because we were out there a couple of weeks ago and they really deserve credit for it.  It may be that the selectors look at giving someone Championship experience ahead of next year, that’s certainly not an impossibility; what they’re not going to do is drag someone up from 23rd on the list to put them in the team to give them a run for next year! They’re going to select from that top group of people, and yet it’s not impossible that conversations might take place with a rider and decisions might be made not to save the horse for next year, but we certainly want to win medals this year too.”
Once again, Will disagrees with me, albeit kindly, (!) when I mention, somewhat wistfully, the depth of talent in Great Britain,
“I think if you look at the Germans, they probably have more depth currently in Eventing, than we have. Certainly we need more depth in show-jumping. In dressage we have four or five very good ones at the top, but I think saying we have depth across the disciplines is perhaps over-stating it a little bit! Like most nations, we have our top group, and we’re a little bit hoping they’re going to stay straight. We do have a lot of great riders in this country but we need the really top horses if we’re going to win medals. In jumping, I think by next year there’ll be ten or twelve teams that will be in with a chance of medals. In Eventing, certainly the competition for gold and silver is going to be very, very tight. In Dressage it’s not just the British, Dutch and the Germans, there are some other nations coming up with some good horses. It’s going to be a really heavy-duty competition next year.”
IMG_4786.jpg
I ask Will how the Olympics being on home turf will add to the pressure next year,
“I think there will definitely be a home advantage, but I think people also underestimate the disadvantages, and the extra pressure that brings – ask some of the Americans how they felt competing at WEG last year? The pressure from the press will be enormous, and is already cranking up. There’s a lot of extra work that comes with a home competition because I want it to be a successful Games as much as anybody else. The reputation of Great Britain is hanging on it. Our job in terms of the Programme is to help everyone prepare for the pressures we can’t control, and subdue the pressures we can, so we’ve been working on that for a couple of years now: Identify what you can control and control it, and identify what you can’t and learn to deal with it!” 

This philosophy has stood Will in good stead in his many travels from show to show,
“People say to me how lucky I am that I get to travel so much, but more often than not you go from the airport, in a taxi to the venue, to the hotel, to the venue, to the hotel, and then back to the airport and away again.  I do now try and make a point of seeing something of the local area that I’m in, but I have to say I  think there should be two different kinds of airports – one for tourists and one for people on business! It’s fun though, and I’m very privileged, I get to see the top horses and riders in the world in each of the disciplines around the world, mainly Europe. I’d love to go to Wellington, for the Winter Equestrian Festival, I’ve never been down there, and I’ve never been to Australia or New Zealand and I’d love to go and watch some eventing over there because they’ve produced some such great riders, it would be great to go and see.”
So when he looks back on his tenure so far, what are his happiest memories of the job, I wonder?
“I think some of the results last year at WEG for Britain were amazing, and funnily enough, if I had to single one out, I’d say Joanne Eccles in the vaulting. Vaulting doesn’t get the funding that the Olympic disciplines and the paralympics do, and the Eccles family had a four year plan and it worked. When you see it all going well, and you see people winning it’s a great feeling. It’s also a great feeling when you come back and everything that you’ve organised has gone well; I think that our plan worked well last year, in difficult circumstances sometimes, and that’s a pretty good feeling. Then there’s been amazingly good, fun evenings and moments with people which have been either very rewarding, or very amusing, and I’ve met a great bunch of people, and I’ve had one or two dinners that have just been nights of laughter!”

Finally, I ask Will, or perhaps I plead with him, what plans does he have for the day after the Olympics next year? Surely a holiday, right? Escape somewhere? 
“If it’s gone well I’ll be trying to work out how we can replicate that in Rio, and if it’s gone not so well, I’ll be trying to work out what we need to do better.  The Rio planning has started already though, I had my first visit there in March, so that’s underway, and I go again in November.” 
Will is making me nervous that I’m wasting his time, even though he’s been incredibly polite and patient with me. Apart from refusing to take credit for anything in a rather typical British manner, (which I’m sure he’d disagree with me!) he’s been an absolute pleasure to talk to; I’d like to thank him very much for his time, and wish all of Team GB continued success at the Europeans, but most importantly in London next year. Thank you as always for reading. Go GB and Go eventing!

Bruce Davidson – Still Going Strong, part 2

By on Jun 29, 2011 12:59 pm -
IMG_4175.JPG

We continue the second and final part of our interview with Bruce Davidson today.  Click here for part 1.  We resume the conversation as Bruce talks about Buck, his legacy, and the future.

So what advice did Bruce give his son before he left for Badminton this spring, where incidentally he finished 21st after a clear round cross country, and the best of the North American contingent,

“I didn’t have to say a thing! I said, ‘Good Luck, and, Show ’em how to do it!’ He knows I have all the faith in the world in him, and he’s been there since he was a kid. I can remember the English saying to me when Nancy (Buck’s sister ) was about four, and Buck was about five, ‘Bruce, exactly what do you expect them to get out of this experience?’,  because you know the English children should be seen and not heard (!), and in that case probably not even seen!  

“Here I was at Badminton with my two little kids in the owners’ tent and the riders’ tent, and Buck telling everybody whether they were hitting the right spot or not at the first fence! As we walked the course I’ll never forget him saying, ‘Well, Dad, Harry could jump this one!’ and there we go, so let’s go and look at the second one then, and by the time we’d got round he’d decided he probably could have jumped about three of the ones that were at Badminton that year. They came home and they built a Vicarage Vee and a Normandy Bank and things like that in our back yard so that he and his sister could race around on foot and practice jumping, and when they got ponies they could do it, and there he is, now he’s doing it, and I expected him to do it. He’s a good guy, he’s a good athlete, a good horseman, a good competitor. I couldn’t be prouder, he’s an exemplary young man and a very kind person.”
Buck of course progressed from jumping on foot at home, to representing the US last year on home ground at the WEG in Kentucky. I asked Bruce if, looking back, team medals or for example, a Badminton or Burghley title, gave him more satisfaction,
“Each is a different thing entirely. I thing being on a team and representing your country, being in that group, particularly in my day, in the old format and back in the ’70’s, team strategy was way different for the first rider as opposed to the last rider depending on how the team was panning out; that was all part of winning a medal, being part of a team, representing your country and doing what you needed to do to get the highest placing all together. Today to win a medal, you want four individuals that all have a chance of winning the individual medal, let them all have a crack at it, and if your cards come up right then your nation will get the medals as well. There’s less team strategy now on the teams that are strong than there ever used to be, because before we would have good team horses, but not necessarily the good individual horses. Now, the teams that win – each of their horses could also win an individual medal.”
“Winning the team medal at Burghley meant as much or more to me than winning the individual on that occasion, and yet it’s a whole lot to throw both at any young person because you don’t even know what either one means at that moment, and there’s just so many emotions that run through your head. As time settles down, I think that anyone who wants to ride on the team obviously wants a team medal more than the individual, and I hope I always rode that way when I was on a team.”

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Now of course the Kentucky Horse Park has a constant reminder to Bruce of his legacy, the marvelous statue of him and Eagle Lion. I have to ask him about it,
“It’s a wonderful feeling – it is a funny feeling because I suppose in most cases the statues are supposed to be there after you’re dead, and I guess people are trying to tell me it’s time for me to give up, or die, or I don’t know what! No, it’s very flattering. From my point of view, I always look at it and say hello to Eagle Lion, and that’s the way I look at it.”
Has anyone recognised him at the statue?
“That happens in Kentucky, of course it does, but actually that happens a lot more in Europe than it does here. You have a certain amount of that, but I’m not someone who has a sign on my car, or advertising on my trailer, I play that down as much as I can.” 
With his litany of successes, common sense approach, popularity within the sport and vast knowledge, did it even cross Bruce’s mind to apply for the position of US team chef/technical advisor? 
“I’m not very political”, he laughs, “I don’t really play that game very well. In my world the coaching position is one that should be selected by the riders that are going. To me, we need a chef d’equipe once in a while to chef d’equipe, but when you’re going to an Olympics or World Championships, let the riders who are going select who goes with them to do the dressage, the show-jumping and the cross country. If you’re not going to have one person that does all three things, and who commands the respect of everyone of their ability to do all three things, then to me you need a temporary person that steps in for the Olympics/Worlds/Pan Ams.  Chris Bartle has it right the way he does it, but here we’re not it doing it like that, it seems everyone is going to specialists, I don’t agree with that, I don’t think it works for a three day result and that it has it’s advantages only if they know what they’re doing in the first place. It’s no good touching an event horse up for the show-jumping too soon because maybe he’ll not make a four star horse if you make him too careful too soon; I don’t think the show-jumper understands that side of it so much because they’ve never experienced that, just as I don’t think the dressage person possibly understands that this horse has to be fit enough and do other aspects apart from just dressage. So, no I’m not very inclined to want to be a coach or any position like that.”
So what does make Bruce happy on a day to day basis?
“I like living on the farm, breeding horses, riding horses. I stay busy all day, don’t worry! To relax I swim, garden, I farm, watch more horses do stuff, I like to watch horses do anything! We have a couple of young horses, one that we’ve run on the flat, and the other one’s ready to go. One of them we bred and one of them we got as a yearling.  All winter long we went to the training center with our two youngsters and they galloped every morning in the sunrise, and if I could come up with a very fancy racehorse, of course I’d love to do that. I’ve always had an interest and  I still enjoy the racing, in fact my young event horse is pretty nice and I think I could probably win a race myself on her! I haven’t give up the dream! If I was lucky enough to have my hands on a good flat horse I’d be very interested.”
If we’re lucky enough it looks like we’ll be seeing more of Bruce in some capacity or another, whether it be following in neighbour Michael Matz’ footsteps and transitioning from winning Olympic medals to training Kentucky Derby winners, or perhaps competing at Rolex again, galloping across country at the Kentuck Horse Park at an event that he’s practically made his own.  Either way I can’t wait. I’d like to extend my thanks to Bruce for his time, thank you for reading, and Go Eventing!

Bruce Davidson – Still Going Strong, part 2

By on Jun 29, 2011 12:54 pm -
IMG_4175.JPG

We continue the second and final part of our interview with Bruce Davidson today.  Click here for part 1.  We resume the conversation as Bruce talks about Buck, his legacy, and the future.

So what advice did Bruce give his son before he left for Badminton this spring, where incidentally he finished 21st after a clear round cross country, and the best of the North American contingent,

“I didn’t have to say a thing! I said, ‘Good Luck, and, Show ’em how to do it!’ He knows I have all the faith in the world in him, and he’s been there since he was a kid. I can remember the English saying to me when Nancy (Buck’s sister ) was about four, and Buck was about five, ‘Bruce, exactly what do you expect them to get out of this experience?’,  because you know the English children should be seen and not heard (!), and in that case probably not even seen!  

“Here I was at Badminton with my two little kids in the owners’ tent and the riders’ tent, and Buck telling everybody whether they were hitting the right spot or not at the first fence! As we walked the course I’ll never forget him saying, ‘Well, Dad, Harry could jump this one!’ and there we go, so let’s go and look at the second one then, and by the time we’d got round he’d decided he probably could have jumped about three of the ones that were at Badminton that year. They came home and they built a Vicarage Vee and a Normandy Bank and things like that in our back yard so that he and his sister could race around on foot and practice jumping, and when they got ponies they could do it, and there he is, now he’s doing it, and I expected him to do it. He’s a good guy, he’s a good athlete, a good horseman, a good competitor. I couldn’t be prouder, he’s an exemplary young man and a very kind person.”
Buck of course progressed from jumping on foot at home, to representing the US last year on home ground at the WEG in Kentucky. I asked Bruce if, looking back, team medals or for example, a Badminton or Burghley title, gave him more satisfaction,
“Each is a different thing entirely. I thing being on a team and representing your country, being in that group, particularly in my day, in the old format and back in the ’70’s, team strategy was way different for the first rider as opposed to the last rider depending on how the team was panning out; that was all part of winning a medal, being part of a team, representing your country and doing what you needed to do to get the highest placing all together. Today to win a medal, you want four individuals that all have a chance of winning the individual medal, let them all have a crack at it, and if your cards come up right then your nation will get the medals as well. There’s less team strategy now on the teams that are strong than there ever used to be, because before we would have good team horses, but not necessarily the good individual horses. Now, the teams that win – each of their horses could also win an individual medal.”
“Winning the team medal at Burghley meant as much or more to me than winning the individual on that occasion, and yet it’s a whole lot to throw both at any young person because you don’t even know what either one means at that moment, and there’s just so many emotions that run through your head. As time settles down, I think that anyone who wants to ride on the team obviously wants a team medal more than the individual, and I hope I always rode that way when I was on a team.”

IMG_8088.jpg
IMG_8091.jpg
Now of course the Kentucky Horse Park has a constant reminder to Bruce of his legacy, the marvelous statue of him and Eagle Lion. I have to ask him about it,
“It’s a wonderful feeling – it is a funny feeling because I suppose in most cases the statues are supposed to be there after you’re dead, and I guess people are trying to tell me it’s time for me to give up, or die, or I don’t know what! No, it’s very flattering. From my point of view, I always look at it and say hello to Eagle Lion, and that’s the way I look at it.”
Has anyone recognised him at the statue?
“That happens in Kentucky, of course it does, but actually that happens a lot more in Europe than it does here. You have a certain amount of that, but I’m not someone who has a sign on my car, or advertising on my trailer, I play that down as much as I can.” 
With his litany of successes, common sense approach, popularity within the sport and vast knowledge, did it even cross Bruce’s mind to apply for the position of US team chef/technical advisor? 
“I’m not very political”, he laughs, “I don’t really play that game very well. In my world the coaching position is one that should be selected by the riders that are going. To me, we need a chef d’equipe once in a while to chef d’equipe, but when you’re going to an Olympics or World Championships, let the riders who are going select who goes with them to do the dressage, the show-jumping and the cross country. If you’re not going to have one person that does all three things, and who commands the respect of everyone of their ability to do all three things, then to me you need a temporary person that steps in for the Olympics/Worlds/Pan Ams.  Chris Bartle has it right the way he does it, but here we’re not it doing it like that, it seems everyone is going to specialists, I don’t agree with that, I don’t think it works for a three day result and that it has it’s advantages only if they know what they’re doing in the first place. It’s no good touching an event horse up for the show-jumping too soon because maybe he’ll not make a four star horse if you make him too careful too soon; I don’t think the show-jumper understands that side of it so much because they’ve never experienced that, just as I don’t think the dressage person possibly understands that this horse has to be fit enough and do other aspects apart from just dressage. So, no I’m not very inclined to want to be a coach or any position like that.”
So what does make Bruce happy on a day to day basis?
“I like living on the farm, breeding horses, riding horses. I stay busy all day, don’t worry! To relax I swim, garden, I farm, watch more horses do stuff, I like to watch horses do anything! We have a couple of young horses, one that we’ve run on the flat, and the other one’s ready to go. One of them we bred and one of them we got as a yearling.  All winter long we went to the training center with our two youngsters and they galloped every morning in the sunrise, and if I could come up with a very fancy racehorse, of course I’d love to do that. I’ve always had an interest and  I still enjoy the racing, in fact my young event horse is pretty nice and I think I could probably win a race myself on her! I haven’t give up the dream! If I was lucky enough to have my hands on a good flat horse I’d be very interested.”
If we’re lucky enough it looks like we’ll be seeing more of Bruce in some capacity or another, whether it be following in neighbour Michael Matz’ footsteps and transitioning from winning Olympic medals to training Kentucky Derby winners, or perhaps competing at Rolex again, galloping across country at the Kentuck Horse Park at an event that he’s practically made his own.  Either way I can’t wait. I’d like to extend my thanks to Bruce for his time, thank you for reading, and Go Eventing!

Bruce Davidson – Still Going Strong, part 1

By on Jun 28, 2011 12:23 pm -
IMG_8067.jpg

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!

Bruce Davidson – Still Going Strong, part 1

By on Jun 28, 2011 12:22 pm -
IMG_8067.jpg

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,
IMG_3087.JPG
“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!

Impact of the 2010 WEG on Kentucky

By on Jun 27, 2011 5:17 pm -

Results of an independent study conducted for the Kentucky Tourism Arts and Heritage Cabinet were released today, to much fanfare, at the Kentucky Horse Park. You can read the report, by Certec, Inc, out of Versailles, Ky, here [PDF] .  Dr Pearse Lyons represented title sponsor Alltech with a couple of exciting announcements, one in the video below, and another that he’ll be in the lead car at the Tour de France next week to officially promote Alltech as the title sponsor of the Normandy 2014 WEG ( fun fact: Deauville is twinned with Lexington). Also speaking, John Nicholson for the Horse Park and Governor Beshear and his wife Jane, who I later bumped into in the tack shop, trying to decide on a bridle…all in a day’s work! 

Of course, everyone’s excited about the National Horse Show coming to the Alltech Indoor Arena this autumn, as well as countless other important events to the Rolex Stadium already this year. These are exactly the kind of opportunities that the facilities, that were built to entice the WEG to Kentucky, will afford the Commonwealth for many years to come, as well as, of course, the wonderful memories!