David O'Connor and Mike Etherington-Smith at Red Hills. Photo by Shems Hamilton.
Red Hills International Horse Trials named Mike Etherington-Smith and David O’Connor as the new course designers for the event last month, and they both made their first planning visit to the venue in Tallahassee, Florida, yesterday to start the process of preparing next year’s tracks.
While Mike is designing the CIC3* course and David is designing the CIC2* and CIC* courses, they both share the same vision to make Red Hills a more competitor-friendly and horse-friendly event. That goal drives the changes they plan to make to the course, which is well known for its twisty, turny lanes and plenty of trees draped in Spanish moss.
“When you have horses going through trees, it’s a really different thought process you have as a designer,” Mike E-S said. “You don’t want the horses wondering where they’re going. The trick is to make sure the avenue through the trees is wide enough so the horses are not mentally stressed.”
With that in mind, many of the course’s galloping lanes will be widened, and Mike and David have also identified a new galloping track that will debut on the course next year. The direction of the course will also be reversed to further improve the flow and give the track more of a galloping feel.
“We’ll be putting in a couple new galloping lanes and doing a little bit of clearing out trees,” David said. “The idea is to make the course quite gallopy and reduce the intensity in the woods so it feels like a very galloping track. We feel like we’ve achieved that by reversing the direction of the course and adding the new galloping stretch.”
Jane Barron and Marvin Mayer, Red Hills co-organizers, stand with Mike Etherington-Smith and David O’Connor under one of the venue’s iconic trees. Photo by Shems Hamilton.
As for new elements planned for next year’s course, Tyson Rementer will build a new water complex and coffin combination, and a bank on one of the wooded lanes is also receiving a facelift. Improving the footing remains a major priority, Mike said, and the grounds crew will continue working hard to give the horses the very best galloping ground come March.
“Red Hills has a fantastic organizing team and a very enthusiastic group of people involved, which is great and really encouraging,” Mike said. “The event also gets a lot of spectator support, which is really good news. It’s fun to be involved in an event like this.”
David said he hopes the changes to the course will encourage riders to return to Red Hills, as several big names — including Phillip Dutton and Boyd Martin, who won the CIC3* in 2013 and 2014, respectively — skipped the event last year.
“There are so many different things about the event that make it top notch, from the spectators to the sponsors to the prize money,” David said. “All of those pieces of the puzzle are pieces that we want for all events. We have a multi-year plan to get the courses to where we want them to be. It’s placing a higher priority on the competitor’s experience with their horse; that’s the final piece of the puzzle.”
Mike said he expects to finalize his plans for the CIC3* course after Plantation Field International Horse Trials in September, where he also designs the three-star track. We’ll continue to bring you updates as Red Hills undergoes these exciting changes. Be sure to follow Red Hills’ new blog for much more from the event.
