2012, the year of the London Olympics is upon us, and Sinead Halpin chatted to Eventing Nation as she made the drive from The Fork, North Carolina to her winter base in Ocala, courtesy of one of her Christmas presents, a new iphone! The other present, a new dressage ring from her mother, was packed in the back of the truck ready to be put to good use this winter on arrival!
Although I doubt Sinead needs any introduction, let me try and sum it up in one sentence: 2011 was a banner year for Sinead and her flying chestnut Manoir de Carneville as they confirmed their potential, finishing 3rd at the Rolex CCI**** as the top placed US pair, and then went on to the Burghley CCI**** Horse Trials in September, jumping clear cross country again, this time around a massive track, to finish 15th.
Having wrapped up a successful clinic just before the New Year with Rebecca Howard and Lynn Symansky, she was free to enjoy her traditional Dec 31st party, but was very discreet about the celebrations,
“I learned how to play croquet, which I didn’t realise could be quite so competitive; it’s not a high class sport anymore, the way we played it!”
and that was about all I got! There will of course, be croquet in England, but I’m not sure if she’ll have time to play. I asked Sinead what the wonderful Manoir de Carneville aka Tate has done since storming round Burghley last September, and how she plans to campaign him this spring?
“Tate’s done nothing! He came back into work on December 1st so he’s walking, and once we get to Florida I will start to add some five minute trots, and add two minutes to that gradually, but he’s just starting to break back into the land of the working! Reflecting on last year, I’m in a pretty awesome place because I have enough experience now, and good experiences, but for a few small glitches, with this horse at the four star level to really be able to fine tune and improve the small things here and there that I think will actually make quite a big difference. I feel the same amount of pressure as everyone else trying for that ultimate goal, but I feel pretty good, I’m excited! I think I need to get both Tate and myself in the competition ring more, and it’s not necessarily at more events because I actually only ran him at five or six events last year, but I want to work on the competitive side. I am going to go down to Wellington, I will take some lessons, but the goal is to get into the ring, I want to show-jump him a bit.”
Sinead won’t only be working on perfecting the physical demands of eventing, but also concentrating on handling nerves,
“I had an interesting conversation with Sean McCann, our USOC sports psychologist about the whole mental aspect of the game. He told me that this whole year will be about pressure, and that I should actually be hoping for the most amount of pressure that I’ve ever dealt with in my life. I want to be hoping that come the summer I’m walking into the show-jumping ring in a medal position, and that’s going to be more pressure than I’ve dealt with. He advised me that the time to start dealing with that is now, to start putting myself in those situations so I can figure out how best to deal with it. I think that’s an interesting piece of advice, and I certainly want to get into a competitive environment more often than I did last year.”
After a discussion with the US Selectors and Captain Mark Phillips, Sinead and Tate will not contest Rolex in the spring, although he will be there as a “guinea pig” to perform the test ride for the dressage judges.
“I’m not going to run him there; I just think it’s a lot and he proved himself quite well on the cross-country last year. He’ll do an intermediate at Southern Pines, and then I’ll run him at the CIC at The Fork, and then he’ll get a little bit of downtime, and now I’m trying to decide whether I go to Europe a little early and I would do the CIC at Luhmuhlen and then hopefully Barbury Castle, but if that’s something that’s not going to happen then I would do Bromont and fly to Europe from there and do Barbury.”
In the meantime, Sinead and her team, headed up of course by the multi-talented, uber-head girl Meg have a busy winter, and the first, and one of the most important things on Sinead’s calendar is the PRO Derby Cross. Sinead explained why it means so much to her,
“First of all, I love the idea of Derby Cross; when we started it years ago it was really a sport to showcase eventing, because I feel that amongst the disciplines we probably get the least amount of exposure, or good publicity. Also, it’s a great way to integrate the sports and get conversations going. I know from personal experience now, that last year I met a lot of show-jumpers and polo players and those communication lines stay open throughout the year, and many of the riders on the other teams did the same thing, and we all really started to connect with people outside of our own disciplines which promotes everything from good riding and training, to sales. I really love the idea of it, I believe in it and I believe we can bring eventing to a new group of spectators who maybe aren’t going to hoof around a several-mile cross country course; I think we can highlight what we do in a really fun way.”
With two eventers on each team, one who’s represented their country internationally, a show-jumper and a polo player, and first class commentary from John Kyle, last year’s Derby Cross at Wellington was certainly wonderful entertainment, and this year the teams already look stacked with talent – you may well be watching this summer’s Olympic riders in action early. Look out for Sinead on Unbelievable, a 10 year old KWPN mare owned by Kim Harrar and evented by Jill Lukens up to Prelim level, but as Sinead explained, with a jumping history in her background (she spent time in Ann Kursinski’s barn but wasn’t quite Grand Prix standard) Sinead’s hoping she may have the dark horse!
“She’s a wicked jumper and really cool. I’m pretty excited because she’s a horse that’s done the jumpers at Wellington but also gone out and competed cross country”
All the proceeds from the Derby Cross go to Operation Homefront, a charity that PRO has supported for the last year, and was able to donate about $11,000 to as a result of it’s efforts.
VIP tickets are still available, but you can wander in and watch for free if you’re in the neighbourhood, and if not, the USEF will be live video streaming it this year.
I’d like to thank Sinead for her time, and wish her a fabulous 2012. You can read her wise and insightful blogs on COTH, and then you can get the real scoop from Meg right here on EN! Smart, witty, fun, talented and kind – to know Sinead is to love her, how can you not? I imagine to have her on your team must be awesome. Go USA and Go Eventing!
