SIEC was home to the Sydney 2000 Equestrian Sports and now plays home to many events year round
Late last year I heard some exciting news for the Sydney International Three Day Event at SIEC. Mike Etherington-Smith (Mike ES) is returning to the home of the Sydney 2000 Olympics to design the CCI3* course. Mike’s return is a full 12 years after he designed the original Olympic Eventing track for the Sydney Games.
Mike first set eyes on the Sydney venue (which alongside Bromont are the only Olympic equestrian venues still used for equestrian sport) in late 1996 with two and half years preparation to the test event set down for a year before the real deal.
Being the busy body that I am I figured Mike ES would be coming to town soon and arranged to meet him during his visit to Sydney in preparation for the late April Sydney CCI event. This year the Sydney event has been moved to much earlier in the season so as to coincide as final preparation for London.
This ditch palisade complete with Aboriginal artwork was part of the 2000 course and hasn’t been used since.
Mike flew into town last week and in under a week has completely redesigned the existing three star track. Although he is utilizing some existing fences and almost no new lanes, I believe almost all of the riders competing at SIEC will not recognize the course. Mike was generous with his time during his visit and we walked around the park where much of the new action will take place but he played most of his design cards very close to his chest.
That said he did tease me with some of the details, the first and most exciting is that there will be a completely new water complex, smack bang in the middle of the action. This water complex is adjacent to the existing bank complex, which itself is only a few years old so I can see it being an interesting factor in all future events at SIEC.
This is not the new water fence but this sunken road complex is also part of the 2000 legacy that remains untouched since the Games
The water complex is literally at the heart of the new course which will be around 6000m (over ten minutes), the course for those that know SIEC will not extend past the cutting. And with the new water only about 10-15 minutes walk from the main arena, this means the spectators can enjoy more of the action without walking for days to get anywhere.
Mike ES, the course designer is a man respected by riders, officials and anyone involved in Eventing for his achievements in the sport. He has designed two Olympic tracks, Sydney and Beijing (Hong Kong), he was the CD at Rolex for 18 years straight and his Kentucky experience culminated in the 2010 WEG.
This still looks great and reminds me of Aussie gold every time I drive past it.
In 2004 Mike was also the TD for the Athens Olympic Games, it could be argued that few people have had such and influence on equestrian sport, certainly Eventing, in the last two decades. He literally wrote the book on XC course design, I know I have an autographed copy of it.
I stalked Mike in Hong Kong to get him to sign my copy of the book, at the time he quipped, “so you’re the other person that bought it”. I asked Mike why he was in Sydney designing courses again when he was retired? He has a real job now, for the last three years Mike has been CEO of British Eventing.
Mike ‘retired’ from full time course design in 2010, at the time, he was tired of spending much of his life on airplanes and in airports. He had had enough, WEG was the perfect excuse to take a break and spend some time sleeping in his own bed while getting his teeth into what was his new job at British Eventing.
A Pony Club clinic was happening on the day I visited SIEC, there is always something happening there
Last year Mike and his wife Sue, took a break their first real holiday in years in New Zealand. Some of his Kiwi Eventing friends convinced him to dip his toe back in the designing waters and today Mike has four designing roles on his books and he looks very happy for it.
As we wandered around the SIEC venue, Mike judiciously steered me away from new fences pegged out on the ground, he really wasn’t prepared to give any secrets away at this stage but he looked invigorated for renewing his relationship with the track that he built for the Olympics back in 2000.
The new track will include a couple of his original Sydney 2000 fences although they will be completely rebuilt thanks to the ravages of 12 years of weather and some Aussie termites. He also commented that our footing was not up to standard and he has left some quite explicit instructions for the grounds staff in the next few months to get the footing up to international standard.
This hammock fence was built for Sydney and has been jumped hundreds of times since, it will remain as part of the new course but will be completely rebuilt.
Mike believes that footing comes before fences, without good footing you cannot have a good XC track, there is no point in having great fences and design if the footing is like concrete.
I asked Mike also about London and his plans to get himself in amongst the action at Greenwich Park? He plans to sit at home with Sue and a glass or two of red wine and watch it on the TV. Even as the CEO of BE has had little to do with the planning for London and after three straight Games working on the inside he is looking forward to enjoying the action, without the responsibility.
Mike and I also chatted about the state of play in Eventing with Officials, training and opportunities and of course I hit him up about safety but I will save that part of our conversation for another day, look out for part two of my chat with Mike ES soon.
Yours in Eventing,
ESJ
