Part two – Aussie WEG recovery

Festy is a home bred horse that Megan has taken to the pinnacle of the sport, brought home team silver from Beijing, narrowly missing out on an individual medal at the same games. Festy in 2009 won two World Cup Eventing rounds, the only horse to do so, both within four weeks of each other in New Zealand then back in Australia. In 2010, he narrowly missed out on repeating the feat winning in NZ and then coming a very close second to WEG Team member Chris Burton and HP Leilani.

My disappointment was even more than not seeing Festy run, but missing out on seeing him go head to head against Michael Jung’s Sam. These two horses were standouts in the World Cup series two years running and had never faced off in the same competition. Australian quarantine rules made it almost impossible for Megan and Festy to travel to Poland for the 2009 final and we know there was not a final in 2010. WEG was going to be the one chance for a head to head. We all missed out on that one.

Festy contracted a serious lung infection during his arduous flight from Sydney to Los Angeles via Hong Kong and Anchorage. He spent his whole time in the USA undergoing treatment and recovery from his illness and never even got close to the Horse Park.

Festy and Megan flew home Fedex, it was just the two of them, the crew and a whole pile of boxes, I guess there wasn’t much in-flight entertainment. Festy finally made it home to Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills in late November. With his system overloaded from stress and an extremely eventful trip, Festy has had in the meantime a severe case of Founder. His recovery is slow and must be extremely frustrating for Megan to watch. 

The good news is that Festy is back to being himself at home and is enjoying being made a complete fuss of and being spoiled rotten. He really enjoys his walks in the deep sand where he doesn’t feel the pain, although he is not happy at all when Megan packs up the other horses going off to a competition. He is definitely used to being number one horse. 

Will we see Festy back in the ring? Megan thinks so, no-matter how long his recovery, she wants him to feel the pleasure of flying again. I can’t wait for that day either, he is pretty special to watch.

In the meantime Megan has a point to prove with her OTTB Kirby Park Allofasudden, Floyd who was dropped from the Australian High Performance Lists in 2011. Megan will be riding Floyd at the Sydney World Cup round in May. I have no doubt that Megan will channel the emotion of the last few months into a blazing ride to prove what she is made of.

INONOTHING

Being on opposite sides of the globe made it tough for Paul Tapner and I to catch up, but I can be pretty persistent and we finally caught up on the phone, me at the beginning of my day and Paul at the end of his.

With only a week until Badminton, Paul, as defending champion with his champion horse recovering in a yard at home from a stifle injury, subsequent surgery and physiotherapy, was actually quite philosophical. Paul has three 4 star horses and with a little over 12 months til the London Games plans on giving the Aussie selectors a real headache.

Simply the choice will not be whether they pick Paul Tapner for the Team, but which of his three mounts will be best equipped to tackle the Greenwich event. During the next year he plans to ensure each of his horses has a top class finish in one of the European four star events.

Inonothing is recovering well, his vets and physiotherapist are very pleased with his recovery and he has begun light training in the careful hands of Georgina, Paul’s wife. Paul is hopeful that they will get to run around Burghley (I hope so, I will be there) or Pau later this year.

Inonothing has been a very consistent performer for quite some time, even before his Badminton win and Paul is very keen to have him back to top form.

What does remain a mystery is how the horse actually acquired the injury. The physical aspects of the injury suggest quite a hard hit. However as Paul recollects things, they had what felt like a slip on the approach to fence 11. At 12a and b, the double corners, things didn’t go to plan as Inonothing didn’t get the striding right but remained committed and jumped badly. While they did give the fence a good hit on the b element, this was on the opposite side to the injury.

It doesn’t matter either way, but when something goes wrong it is always helpful to know why.

What I do know is that Australia will be spoilt for choice as we approach London next year and while we may have seen one champion retire, Ringwould Jaguar, we have not seen the end of the careers of either Jester or Inonothing. In addition there are plenty of combinations waiting in the wings to step up and represent in the Green and Gold.

We could always steal Phillip and Boyd back too.

For the record, Sam Griffiths and Happy Times will be returning to the international spotlight with an entry into Badminton later this month and Paul Tapner will be defending his 2010 Badminton title on Kilfinnie II. Stuart Tinney and Vettori are slated to tackle the Sydney World Cup round in May, as are Chris Burton and HP Leilani. As for WEG sensation Peter Atkins and Henny, they are still embroiled in a legal battle and their fate as a combination is yet to be decided.

Yours in Eventing,

ESJ