Derek di Grazia – Rolex’s new Course Designer

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Derek di Grazia very kindly agreed to meet with me on a night that he should have been celebrating, and I hope that as soon as I left he did indeed go out and paint the town red! There are only six CCI4*s in the world, and, as we sat and talked, he had just completed a course walk of the final Rolex course as the course designer for the first time.  He had walked with Tom Ryckewaert, his Technical Delegate, and everything had gone smoothly and according to plan.  Derek would leave for his home in California the next day, knowing that until he returns shortly before the start of Rolex, all that remains to be done is mainly cosmetic adjustments and then the dressing of the fences.  
“It’s nice to get to this point, where we have got quite a lot accomplished. Now it’s really just the last big push when I come in on the Sunday and Monday, before the ground jury sees it on the Tuesday.  Everything is measured, the heights are set, it’s just the dressing and making sure everything is where it needs to be and that the roping is where it needs to be, which is all time consuming. The good thing though is that the jumps are there, and then it’s just making sure the footing is right.”
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I mention that he must feel comfortable leaving it all in course builder’s Mick Costello’s capable hands, and he agrees.  Sure enough, when the kids and I return the next day to take pictures Mick is at the Head of the Lake, seeding the ground. He says I may take and publish photos of the jumps, but NOT in context, ie only one duck at a time! 
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Let’s hope the horses don’t make such heavy weather of it!
I asked Derek when he started designing courses, – “I started in 1986, officially”, and then I asked if it’s always been his dream to design the cross country at Rolex:
“No, I wouldn’t say that I was dreaming 20 years ago that I would design Rolex. I would say that I started doing this and one thing led to another, and it leads you down a path where one day you realize there are only x amount of jobs. It’s just like thinking you’re going to go and design in Europe one day. There are x amount of jobs, and especially x amount of four stars so I just started hoping I would one day have a chance of designing one of them, whether it was Rolex or any of them.” 
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Derek became involved with Rolex as assistant course designer to Mike Etherington-Smith three years ago, which also included duties at the World Equestrian Games last September, but he has been designing other cross country courses at the Kentucky Horse Park for some ten years prior to that, (Kentucky Classic, Champagne Run, Midsouth) and he also has a rich history of riding over it as a competitor including winning Rolex in 1985. 
Quiet, modest, and playing his cards quite close to his chest, Derek won’t name his favourite courses for fear or hurting anyone’s feelings, and despite his accomplishments and skill at what he does feels privileged to be able to design one of the world’s top courses,
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“If you’re lucky enough to be asked to do a top course, it’s great. Whether you design for one of the Championships – an Olympics or a WEG or something like that, it’s just a matter of whether or not they want you.”
Last year was a monumental year for  Mike E-S and Derek, designing both Rolex and WEG courses within 6 months, and meanwhile in the back of his mind Derek was already formulating the course for this year’s competition.
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“This year my focus was obviously that I want it to be different from the event we had here 5 months ago. And yet we didn’t have much time, especially with the winter we’ve had, but the course IS different. We walked it today with the TD and he said it’s different; he was the TD 5 months ago too. I particularly wanted it not to be the same because I’m sure there are going to be a lot of people that were here 5 months ago who are going to come back in April.  Although the course starts and finishes in the same place, the course is different.”
Q: Does it go in the same direction?
Derek: It goes in many directions! Laughs – (Come on! Help me out a little here!)
 
Q: Although you’re somewhat closer to the Horse Park than Mike E-S in England, (Geography, Maths, Science – not my strong points) California is still not local. How often do you make it to Kentucky?
Derek: I’m a frequent flyer. Last year I came every month. I was here four weeks ago, I’m here now, and I’ll be back next month for the event. 
Q: And the winter didn’t make you want to move here?!
Derek: No, I never have, I’ve been coming to Kentucky since the 1970’s and I’m still living in California, and I’ve been here when it’s very cold, I know how cold it can get. 
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Derek is a course advisor to the USEF on safety so I asked him what types of frangible devices we can expect to see at Rolex this year,
 
“I use the pins, but I do a lot with the reverse pinning. I like that. We used it last year. I’ve used it in events since. I haven’t used the MIM system yet, I just need to see it and see how it would apply to what I do. I’ve used Pro-Logs and I’m sure there’s a place for them. The best thing about them for me is the horses don’t get cut up by them, I like that. I think there’s a time and a place for everything.”
Q: When you’re designing the course, do you have anyone in particular in mind? Do you imagine yourself or your wife riding around it? Or perhaps the best and the worst rider at that level? 
Derek: I try to design to make the courses friendly for the horses. I try to design to make the riders think and I try to design to educate both horses and riders. 

Q: Which are some of your favourite courses?

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Derek:  There are certain courses that I’ve been to over the years that I’ve liked, and that’s not to say that you’re always going to like a person’s body of work, but you may have liked it on that year, or it may not have appealed to you as much on the following year.  I think there are a lot of good designers out there, everyone brings something different to the table, everybody has a little different style. I’m very interested in seeing what different people do. 

Q: What do you think people would say is your style or trademark?
Derek: I haven’t got a clue! (laughs!) I enjoy traveling to the bigger events just to see what people are doing, to see how the horses jump the fences, to see how they pull up at the end, and to see how they are the next day because that’s important to me. You always want horses to finish confident, and looking like they’re ready to go on the next day and do a good job. Especially going through the season you want to see horses do better and better because then you know those horses are getting a good experience and they’re learning. 
That’s certainly what we always aspire to–to get these horses to go out and become better. 
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Q: When you take on a course from scratch, how much will the terrain shape the design?
Derek: Depending on the property that you’re designing on, you may need to put more terrain into the course, or take terrain out of the course. You have to be able to assess that as you’re setting out the track. I’ve been in places where the terrain was almost too much so we had to figure out ways where we had to lessen that, where we had to keep the flow and rhythm and not make it feel trappy. 
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Q: What will you be doing on cross country day at Rolex?
Derek: I will be sitting somewhere where I can see a lot, probably in control where they have all the monitors because you can see most of the course that way.  I always enjoy seeing the first horses out because obviously you’re going to see how it’s going to ride, and then from there on it’s just up to them to get the job done. Of course it depends on the day, if you have a day of good weather it’s wonderful, but if it’s a day like I had at Fair Hill two years ago when we had so much rain and we were busy the whole day just trying to keep the footing right to get the horses round, then you’re working the whole time.
 
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We agree that here in Kentucky, and especially in April we never know what kind of weather we might get, but Derek seems unperturbed; in fact nothing seems to bother him very much. He is calm and gentle, and laughs easily.  I’d like to thank him again for his time, thanks to Mick Costello for the wonderful job he does, thank you for reading, and go cross country! 


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