If you scanned the Rolex entry list, and did a double take at Hamish Cargill’s name thinking it sounded vaguely familiar, you weren’t alone. When Hamish and Dave announced last year that they hadn’t made the Australian Team…
…and were coming to Kentucky anyway, few people took them at their word that their riding was more than a punchline. However, Hamish has been quietly campaigning his Rolex ride, his mother Alannah’s Sandhills Tiger, and – breathe a sigh of relief – although he has no plans to abandon Dave and the media gig, he does aspire to some lofty goals in his competitive career. I interrupted his packing to talk to him about his preparations.
Q: When did you send your entry in for Rolex?
Hamish: I started the entry process a couple of weeks ago, but as with all entries and things I posted it a week out from the closing date, and of course no matter how much you spend on couriers and express post this and express post that, it only popped up online a few days ago!
Sandhills Tiger
Q: Tell us a little about your horse…
All pictures of Hamish riding by Derek O’Leary at OzEquestrian Photography
Hamish: “Sandhills Tiger – he’s my best horse and I’ve been riding him for six years now. I would say he was my first “kick on” 3 star horse. I’d been through the levels with a few others before him that weren’t quite as good, but he is the first horse that can do all three phases very well; he’s a lovely horse on the flat, and he’s done some pretty amazing things on the cross country over the years. We have been working on his show-jumping a lot recently. It’s always been his weakest phase and he’s tended to have a rail or two down, especially when there is a lot of pressure on–that’s when I think we both tended to have a rail or two down!
He had a year off in 2009 due to an injury, and so I got him going again last year. Once he started getting the qualifications back up, I had Rolex in mind all along. Tiger is 14, and we actually bought him from the new Australian eventing coach, Prue Barrett about eight or nine years ago. He belongs to my mum, but he was originally bought for my sister and I sort of stole him along the way! She made the mistake of going overseas for six months and I started riding him. Of course when she came home there was no giving him back!”
Hamish’s sister no longer events, she’s a “hard-working solicitor now”, but she will be coming over to watch her brother compete at Rolex, which is only fitting, as a) it is her former horse he’s riding and b) they were spectators together at the inaugural WEG in 1990 in Sweden when Hamish got hooked on eventing,
How Hamish got hooked on Eventing
“The first real contact I ever had with horses, other than the odd pony that was around, was when Mum and Dad took us off to the World Equestrian Games in Stockholm. We thought the eventing was awesome–just the most amazing thing ever! Just walking the course and seeing all those massive jumps! We got home after that and got stuck into it with ponies straight away! I was 7 years old when I got my first pony, and I haven’t looked back since. My best memory is of Ian Stark on Murphy Himself, always on the edge of control. He jumped down this enormous sort of drop fence down a hill, and my sister and I were sitting under the fence, right on the turn–probably one of the places you shouldn’t have been sitting. I remember Murphy Himself bearing down on us, and Ian Stark pulling on the right rein with both hands, and I remember thinking he was the coolest guy in the world, because he said “Shit-a-brick” as he was pulling this horse around, trying to get it to go where he wanted it to go, which was not on top of us kids! From then on, eventing just seemed like the way to go, really!”
I think the clip Hamish is talking about is the last one of Ian & Murphy shown here.
Hamish’s mother, who owns Tiger, will also be watching Hamish ride round Rolex:
“Tiger is very much a family horse. He was one of our first big purchases as a family, and he’s turned out to be a really, really good quality horse. I think he deserves a chance to go out and show what he can do on a bigger stage, and on a world-wide level, so that’s what I’m looking forward to.”
“We got him as a five or six year old, he was off the race track. Prue hadn’t had him very long, and Mum actually spotted him at an event here with Prue riding him, and she thought he was a pretty amazing horse so they got to talking. Prue sold him to us on the proviso that he had to stay with her for an extra six months and get more schooling. We were only young riders at the time (just coming out of juniors) so once he was up to one star my sister was allowed to have him, and it went on from there. “
Q: So your mother must be quite a horsewoman too, then?
Hamish: “Yes, she is. She’s a New Zealander, and she grew up on a sheep farm on the South Island in New Zealand, so there were lots of ponies in her childhood and she was always into horses. Then she met Dad in Western Australia and got a horse again, and from then on as they moved around the country, Mum acquired a horse or two, here and there. ”
Future Plans
Q: Did coming to the WEG last year have any bearing on you choosing to compete at the four star here at Rolex Kentucky, rather than say Badminton, Luhmuhlen, or even Adelaide?
Hamish: “It definitely did. We went to Badminton in 1999, and that was pretty amazing, but it just seemed like a massive event, a really big step. Rolex seemed like a good stepping stone, and then coming over for WEG last year means that I know the layout, I’ve seen the place, and I feel a bit more comfortable with it. It seemed like a more natural progression. Plus we loved our time over there, we loved the place, I found myself quite at home there, and so I feel quite relaxed about going back.”
Q: And certainly everyone loved you and Dave!
Hamish: “Well, that was a bit of a bonus, wasn’t it! (laughs!) It’s a bit of a different journey this time, but hopefully with the same sort of positive outcome.”
Q: And apart from just wanting to re-visit Kentucky for old times’ sake, you must be secretly hoping that if it all goes well at Rolex, Prue might harbour some long-lost love for her old horse, and cap you for next year’s Olympics?
Hamish: “Look, I hope so. There’s been a bit of discussion about what I’m doing going over to Rolex on the other side of the world, but this was one of those things, one of those life experiences that you’ve got to have. For better or for worse you’ve got to go and put yourself out of your comfort zone and do these big, international events and be on the entry list next to William Fox-Pitt, Phillip Dutton, Oli Townend, and Mary King. If it all goes well, then absolutely the Olympics would be fantastic, but it’s a long way off. Just getting on the plane to go to Kentucky in a week seems a long way off when you’ve got a horse standing in the paddock, with all the sorts of things that could go wrong, but absolutely that’s the ultimate goal. And yes, of course, a good result in Kentucky would definitely raise my game a few notches from where it is now in the scheme of things ”
Q: How long have you been hoping that you might be able to come to Rolex, was it something you started working for as soon as you returned from WEG, or did you even have an inkling before you left that there might be a chance of you coming back to ride here this spring?
Hamish: “Before I went away, Tiger had had his year off, then he had been in work since early February last year, and he did his first event in July, a one star. Then I didn’t do anything else before I came to WEG, but he was kept in work for me by my lovely groom and three days after we got back I did another one star. From there he went and did a three star CNC event a few weeks later, and a CCI 3* at the end of last year. At that stage I was still cantering him around and being a bit careful with him because of his leg, but he handled the course there really well and did it all really easily, and I just thought to myself, ‘this horse is back’. All the concern I’d had, protecting him throughout the year, just fell away a bit, and from then on it was just a matter of looking forward, and seeing if we’d make it to Rolex. I got him going early in our summer, in early January this year, and had him fighting fit for the first events of the season and he got another qualifier in, and then he just needed one more, so we went down to Victoria, which is about an 11 hour drive, and we did that a few weeks ago and he got his final CNC 3* qualifier, and since then it’s been all on.
A lot of boxes needed to be ticked before I could go. One of the biggest issues in the first place was that when I contacted the transport company to see whether I could get a flight to America and they didn’t have anything planned for this time of year. Eventually they rang back and said they had a few standardbred pacers that needed to go to the US, so we had the plane. Then we gradually got the qualifications, and now the horse is sound and going the best he’s ever gone so that’s all good, but it’s all just taken some time to fall into place. “
Q: Was it superstition, or just wanting to keep your two lives separate, or is there another reason why you really never talked about your eventing career when you were over here with Dave?
Hamish: “I suppose it’s a little bit to do with keeping it separate in that I feel like I have two different profiles of myself, and also a little bit superstitious – I didn’t want to beat my own drum too much. I definitely never want to use the Hamish and Dave side of things to push my riding career. My riding career needs to speak for itself, and the same with the media stuff. I think the biggest concern with horses is everything can fall in a heap so quickly, riding is the greatest leveler, especially eventing, so you don’t want to appear to be too big for your boots. It’s also a very Australian thing, you don’t want be too pushy.”
How Hamish got his start in broadcasting
Q: Do you hope that you’ll be able to continue with both a competitive riding career, and a media presence?
Hamish: “I think so, it’s working so far. There’s a lot of opportunities out there; it’s sort of the way the world’s going now – look at us talking now on opposite sides of the world over the internet. It just means working out a balance, and that’s just figuring it out as I go along.
Two years ago I actually made a big decision; I’d been riding full-time for five years since I finished University and I felt like I was getting to the point where I was too enmeshed in it–I was consumed by it–and felt I needed to broaden my horizons a bit. I took three months off and I was a snow reporter for one of the ski resorts in New South Wales, so the start of my broadcasting life was doing the daily snow reports and weather updates for tv and radio. I love skiing, and it was great to get away from the sport and horses for just a little while, and it really sharpened my focus on riding; I came back and had the best three months I’ve ever had.
The same thing with WEG last year–coming over for a few weeks seemed like one of those opportunities that you just have to grab. Yes, it was time away from our own horses, but I think it was such a positive thing on so many levels, not just on a media front, but to see the riders, and to see how it all works on that scale that I wouldn’t ever pass it up again.”
In a departure from their usual hilarious episodes filmed in Kentucky, and then some more lighthearted ones at the Adelaide Three Day Event, Hamish and Dave tackled the Queensland Flooding, raising money for the equestrian community affected by the crisis, and proving their journalist credentials were genuine.
“It was a big moment in Australia, and we felt like it was one of those things we could be part of in a positive sense, because there were all these stories coming out about how it was affecting the horses and the horse community, so it just seemed like something we should do, and could do to help, quite easily. It was good to do something that was a bit more serious too, and broaden our range.”
Where is Dave?
Q: Do you keep in touch with Dave and see him often?
Hamish: “All the time! Dave’s house is about ten minutes up the road, and we probably speak daily on the phone. Speaking of mixing our riding and our media careers: there’s a new Australian national tv programme being made by one of the major networks here based on the 1800’s Gold Rush, a bit like an Australian Western, and Dave and I have landed ourselves the roles of the two stunt double riders for the lead actors. Dave starts his career tomorrow in wardrobe and make-up! (Tuesday!) I couldn’t start because I’m leaving for Rolex so I start as soon as I get back, but this is now our big foray into Hollywood! It’s funny because it’s just one of those random things that popped up because of a phone call, and I roped Dave in to come with me so I’d have someone to go with. Then we got all nervous about whether we’d be able to ride the horses, until we reassured ourselves that we ride horses all day every day, we’re pretty sure we’ll be able to ride a horse through the bush at a gallop, I think we’ll manage!”
The Love Connection
However, as close as Hamish and Dave might be, when push comes to shove, Hamish picked girlfriend Annabel Armstrong, an eventer at 3* level herself, to come with him to Rolex,
“Well, yes, she has the triple threat – she’s happy to be groom, coach and girlfriend! She’s an amazing rider. She finished her university degree at the end of 2009 and like me, she’s put all that aside and been concentrating on her riding career. She kicked off her business last year, and now she’s got a really good team of horses, and she’s actually shot past me, she’s got more horses than me and she seems to be busier than me which is great. Dave is a very good show-jumping coach though, he’s been really helpful to me over the years, but who knows, they may still come. We’re holding out hope that Dave and his girlfriend might be able to pull off a surprise visit.”
Q: I think I remember you coaching Annabel at Adelaide last year, and wondering if it ever caused any heartbreak?
Hamish: “We get along really well. I maintain that it works better if she coaches me! I take direction better! No, it’s one of those things – you can skate on thin ice a bit but it’s a lot of fun having someone to ride with at home every day, and you make each other better, you’re always keeping an eye on each other. You’ve just got to not be afraid to say something if you see something that could be better or could be fixed, and I think that’s been responsible for a lot of improvement in both of us over the last few years. “
The Road to Rolex
Q: Your horse leaves next week; will you fly with him?
Hamish: “Yes, I’m going with him which is good as I’ll be able to keep an eye on him. It’s that long flight that the horses had to go on for WEG – it’s about 30 hours through Hong Kong, then Anchorage then down to LA. It’s a bit of a journey, but I’m going with him, and that will be an experience in itself. Then as soon as they let me out of quarantine we get straight onto another plane into Kentucky. I get there, we’ll have a quiet day or two, and then it will be all systems go for the ten days or so before the event starts.”
Wishing Hamish and Sandhills Tiger a safe flight over. Rest assured that once they land in Kentucky, it certainly will be all systems go, as we’ll make sure to keep Eventing Nation and all the fans in Australia apprised of their every move! Thank you to Hamish for sparing me some of his prep time, and please pass on our regards to Dave; we look forward to seeing you soon. Thank you for reading. Go Rolex, and Go Eventing!
