This article was originally published at Eventing Nation.
It was recently my privilege to enjoy a fairly long telephone conversation with Jimmy Wofford, much longer than I had promised him, to talk about his application for the post of US Eventing Team Coach. However, despite my flurry of emails, indecision, and complete disorganisation, Jimmy always remained calm, courteous and professional. I wanted to publish the interview in it’s entirety, and it’s pretty much verbatim, as Jimmy doesn’t waste words. Neither does he waste time and I’d like to thank him profusely for sharing his with us, as well as his knowledge and opinions, ideas and plans. When Jimmy isn’t coaching, writing, or giving clinics, he can be seen at many of the events, watching and assessing. I urge you also to read his excellent blog, which is hilarious as well as informative, much more than just a bulletin board, and it also has links to his articles. I could go on and on about his accomplishments, but instead we’ll let the man speak for himself.
Q: Thank you for joining us. You announced recently that you will be applying for the job of US Eventing Team Coach. Why did you decide to make that public?
Jimmy: I decided to make it public because so many people had asked me about it. I put a note on my
website, which I basically use as a bulletin board for my students and people who follow my clinics. I keep my schedule there.
Q: When did you come to the final decision to apply?
Jimmy: I’ve been thinking about it for a very long time. The decision sort of evolved and started to firm up, and after they announced the search committee and the time-line, I thought that I would go ahead and apply.
Q: You’ve also announced that you’ve “cleared the decks” so to speak, you’ve leased out your yard and won’t sell horses to avoid any conflict of interest. Are you afraid that if you don’t get the position you might find yourself at a loose end?
Jimmy: Well, I’ve been as busy, or busier than I was before I closed my program. I’m free-lancing in the area during the week, and I’m doing as many, or more clinics on the weekends as I used to do, so the location of the work has changed but the workload is still about the same. Mark Phillips is a friend of mine and he had mentioned a couple of years ago that he was going to resign after London after that, without saying anything I just thought about it. I hadn’t decided yet, but I felt like it was the right time for me to step back from my programme anyway, and that would have the additional benefit of “clearing the decks.
Q: I believe they’re starting the search for an applicant this early so that whoever replaces Mark would have time to assimilate into the programme and follow Mark leading up to the end of next summer?
Jimmy: In their request for proposals, The Eventing Search Committee stated that the new hire would “shadow” the present coach. he or she might possibly serve in the role of developing rider coach during the next, basically 2 years, leading up to London, and then take over after the first of the year in 2013.
Q: What do you think shadowing Mark would be like?
Jimmy: I have to say it would not be a big change because I go to all of the big competitions anyway, and I see him there, and I watch what’s going on, so I suppose “that person” would be a little bit more closely involved but it would not be any big change in my lifestyle, for sure.
Q: Hypothetically, if the job were yours, how do you envision the coaching being divided? Will you coach the riders yourself, let them continue with their personal trainers, or check in at the beginning of the season and make a plan rather like the British Team do?
Jimmy: Well, any horseman always starts off with ” that depends”…and in this case, in the next almost 24 months, the role of the prospective Chef D’Equipe/Technical Advisor, or to use the old terminology, the incoming Coach, is not going to have a great deal to say to the elite riders because they’re going to continue to work with Mark. Mark is under contract from now until then. There may be some rider who is closer to me and wants consistent help with a horse they find difficult – if I can fill that role that is fine, but Mark is coaching the team at London, and so from now until then he’s going to be the determinant voice in that process.
In the meantime, the new coach is brought on board because they will, of course, be included in the discussions, in the committees, the evaluations, and the vetting process, all of which are of necessity closed meetings.
The Search Committee mentioned, as I say, that it is possible that the new coach would become the Developing Rider Coach, and that is why I say, what sort of coaching I would do depends on which rider we’re talking about. If it’s an up and coming two star rider who’s just getting ready for their first three star, chances are the team is going to have the new coach work with them because there is very little chance that that horse and rider are going to London.
I’m sure you read the
Horse and Hound. When they announced the team this last summer, one of the staff writers went and interviewed Pippa, and basically asked her where she’d been for the last five years. Here’s the only winner of the Rolex Grand Slam in the history of the Sport, and she’s been on the bench for five years, and she said exactly the right thing – that it takes that long to make these horses. I would say that she is absolutely right, and it is equally true of the riders; Jack Le Goff used to say that he reckoned that he would take a rider from preliminary level to Badminton in four years. I don’t see that happening anytime soon, you know, it’s more like six years now, minimum, and that’s if everything goes absolutely perfectly all along the way.
My point being that the new person, hopefully they are going to be brought on board to start immediately with the developmental program. The riders that the new coach works with this year, need to be ready in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
Q: You do travel an awful lot, you’re at so many of the competitions and see almost everything…
Jimmy: I do. In many instances I see more than the selectors because I see these riders at clinics anywhere from two to four years before the selectors even have their first look at them. Then I see them at the more local horse trials which are not official selection trials and which many of the selectors do not attend, so I see them in different circumstances, plus I see them on other horses. Many times I have more of a, let’s say, a 360 degree view of that horse and rider than the selectors who are of necessity operating from a snapshot, and of Mark, who has to take the horse and rider as they are but sometimes he does not have the context of that horse and rider.
Q: WEG may have been a wake up call for the US eventers, but I think the problem maybe is more endemic? As an english person coming over here some ten years ago I couldn’t help noticing that geographically you’re at such a huge disadvantage, both nationally and internationally. How can you alleviate that, and make it a fairer playing field, or can you?
Jimmy: Well, naturally we can’t shrink the country so people have to adapt themselves to it. The coach has to go out to the riders on a more regular basis. One point that I did not make in my press release because I did not want to divulge a great deal of what is in my application, but I’ve certainly made no secret of my thoughts on the the matter. My personal answer would be we need a full time coach. In preparation for this possible application I took several steps: I used to be an FEI course designer at the Championship level, I used to be a big-time R judge, I used to be heavily involved in sport administration, I’m a past president of the Federation, past officer of both the equestrian team and the US eventing association. I no longer do any of these things: I COACH.
I coach and I teach and I write about it, and I talk about it. This is what I do. So the things that other people do that spread their time and their energy, I no longer do. I no longer do any of those things even though I have the experience and knowledge of being involved in them.
What this means is that if I’m doing the job, hopefully starting out as the Developing Coach, but later on as the overall Coach, I would not have other aspects of the sport that are dividing my time. If I’m not coaching or giving a clinic, I’m writing about training and riding, I’m thinking about it continually.
To circle back around to your original question, I think there are things, that we can do to help to shrink the country; one of them is the use of technology. My view is that you either have to embrace the internet or you have to ignore it completely; It’s very hard to be a little bit involved. I have embraced it. I text, I email, I look at video clips on youtube and I would expect to do a great deal of that. You have new tools that were not available ten or twenty years ago. For example, the use of video clips: I already do a great deal of commenting about video. Students will say they had a problem at a particular horse trial, and I’ll ask if there’s any video available. If it’s posted on Youtube, I’ll watch the video clip, and then I’ll write an analysis of my opinion of what I saw, and send it back to them via email.
Q: You’ve said that if you’re in charge of the team you’d like to emulate George Morris and the programme he runs with the US showjumpers, does that mean taking squads to Europe, and especially England?
Jimmy: Oh absolutely, both elite rider and developing rider tours.
Q: EventingNation had a poll which you led by a considerable amount by votes of who readers thought should win the job, does that mean anything to you?
Jimmy: It’s tremendously gratifying, I just hope the selection committees are reading the same poll!
Q : What excites you about eventing at the moment?
Jimmy: (answered almost without hesitation) Just the sheer near perfection of the riders at the top, and the challenge of trying to get the next group of riders up to that level. The Mark Todds and the WIlliam Fox-Pitts of the world have shown us what is possible.
Q: If you could have taken one horse home from the WEG last year, which one would it be?
Jimmy: You know, I think I might have picked Jakarta (finished 16th individually with PIggy French GB) I was a little surprised; to my eye, he never showed any greenness, and I had expected that he might be a little green in places. I knew he was going to get a good ride anyway, but I expected that at some point the jockey would have to help out. If it happened, I missed it, because I just thought that was a foot perfect ride. My goodness, the British selectors really rolled the dice, and…well, it’s frightening what they accomplished!
Photo courtesy of Nico Morgan
Q: What would you change about eventing?
Jimmy: I think I would try and keep eventing as it is, without losing the amateurish spirit. AMATEURISH has two meanings – it means clumsy, ill-formed, ill-practiced, unskilled. It also means an activity that is done for the love of the thing rather than for the recompense. I think we are developing the skill part of the sport, but I would hate to see eventing lose the other part, just the sheer joy of being connected with horses.
Q: What do you look for when you go looking for event horses now?
Jimmy: These days I still look for the “look of eagles,” I want to see a horse with a real sense of presence and real sense of himself. These days they have to be phenomenal athletes but they also have to be elastic. We don’t see as many successful horses of Primmore’s Pride type – great, big, rangy, galloping thoroughbred or near thoroughbred. A horse that can just hit a big lick and gallop all day, that’s not the modern paradigm. So these days I’m looking more for a horse like Jacob Two Two: 16.1, 950lbs, keen as mustard, smarter than Einstein, quick as a cat and a good mover for a thoroughbred, a very good mover. That’s what we’re looking for, we have to have equine super-athletes to do this.
Again, a huge thank you to Jimmy Wofford for talking to us, and thank you for reading. Applications for the position of US Eventing Chef D’equipe/Technical Advisor closed on 31st January.
