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Jock Paget has enjoyed a well-deserved and much publicised meteoric rise to become a member of New Zealand’s eventing elite – talented, hard-working, bright and ambitious, the fact that he’s gone from bricklayer to Olympian in ten years should hardly come as a surprise; what will be shocking is if his isn’t a household name to rival his team mates Mark Todd and Andrew Nicholson at the top of our sport for many years to come. 2012, even by Jock’s standards has been a good year – a Team Bronze and 10th individually at the London Olympics to add to 5th at Burghley, 6th at Rolex and 2nd at Pau CCI****s just to scratch the surface. Barely was the dust settling on the season and most people were planning holidays, rest periods and turn-out than he was loading up three horses to take to Germany to train with reigning World, European and Olympic Champion Michael Jung for three weeks, and he kindly talked to me during his time there, about why he went, what he was learning, and his plans for world domination the future.
Jonathan and Clifton Lush jumping to 5th place at Burghley CCI**** 2012
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Jock brought three horses with him to Germany – Clifton Lush, Bullet Proof, and Chequers Play The Game, as well as an extremely limited German vocabulary, “I can order ‘Two Beers, Please’ so the language barrier has been difficult but we’re starting to develop our own language a little bit!”, as well as a clear idea of what he wanted to accomplish,
“For me, I’ve got my system now that I use to produce horses and to prepare them for events and bring them through the levels, and I’m not looking to change that, I’m looking to get better at it. I’m looking to pick up another ride – when you go to Michael’s, the ride he uses at home is slightly different to my ride at home so maybe instead of me changing my ride to his ride, I just need to be good enough so I can do his ride and my ride, and Mark’s ride and Andrew’s ride. That’s what I’d like to be able to do. For me it’s not about just being able to give one ride it’s about being able to give every ride, and being able to give each ride when you need to; so if this horse might need this ride at this fence and then need a completely different ride at the next fence I’d like to be able to flick it on and off just as easy as you say it. I think the only way to do that is to go and watch that person, ride with them and train with them – the person who’s going to do Michael’s ride the best would be Michael, I really enjoy watching other people and watching the best ride that they do and what makes them and their horse good. You’re never going to be able to be as good, but if you can recreate a bit of that ride or that feel it’s good if you can add it to your system rather than change your system.”
The chance to ride and train with Michael has been a long time coming for Jock, it’s something he’s been patiently hoping for for some time, but concrete plans weren’t made until this summer and he describes how it came about in his typical laid-back style. (This is the guy who confesses he sleeps like a baby the night before cross country at major three days!)
“I always watch the other riders go, and I’d seen Michael and his father work with his horses and I love the way Michael rides, and talking about different rides, he can give lots of different rides whenever he wants, I’d picked up on that in the warm-up rings in lots of events I was seeing him at, and I liked the way horses go for him, I like the way he rides, I like the way his father trains with him and they always seem nice to their horses and their horses always seem happy so I thought it would be a great place to go and see what they’re doing. Then of course he went and won his first four star, his first World Championship, the Europeans, the Olympics….whatever he’s doing has got to be right! When he won Luhmuhlen this year on another horse I said to Erik (Duvander) I should be going to spend some time with him, so Erik started watching Michael and his father even more closely after I mentioned that and strongly agreed. Erik approached Mr Jung at Luhmuhlen and asked him if it was something they’d be interested in and they said yes.”
It’s easy to underestimate Jock when you first meet him – the easy-going charm, the willingness to chat and ready smile – he’s a genuinely nice guy who makes time for everyone but there’s also the mad work ethic, determination and ambition and brains that have helped get him where he is today. Jock describes the Jung base as more functional than fabulous,
“It’s not flash and it hasn’t had a million dollars spent on it but it’s beautifully built, correctly built and it’s very well-maintained, they take great care of everything. The arenas are in great nick, their gear is in great nick, the horses are in great nick, it’s a very well-run place as you’d expect. The place is kitted out a lot like a competition; they have lots of flags and things around to try and create that feel you get at a competition. There’s an indoor which is probably 50 x 20, maybe, or 50 x 30, an outdoor with an all-weather surface which is 60 x 20, then they have a treadmill, walker, a couple of day paddocks which have got a sand base on them for the horses to go out in the winter. He has a cross country course and I think Michael and his father have built all of the jumps themselves, and they’ve got everything you can think of.” And as to the rumours of enormous exaggerated red and white flags on each obstacle? Not true! “Yes, he does have red and white flags on them, but not every single jump.”
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While Michael’s father Joachim has been helping Jock on the flat, Michael has been working on the jumping with him,
“The horses that I’ve taken are all nice horses, they’re all trained, and jump well and know their job, so we just go out to the arena where the course is set and ride courses. Michael likes all three of them, and his father really likes them all actually. I did take nice horses to them, and good horses to work with; I didn’t want to take horses that you have to back off or go easy on them because they’re not going to cope. All three horses have very good brains so you can change things on them and challenge them and they won’t get offended by it. I didn’t want to take horses that we’d have to try and change anything on, I just wanted to put some polish on them and myself. Michael will tell me what to jump and I’ll jump it, and then he’ll tell me what I can do better and then I’ll go and do it, and then we’ll go and do a different exercise or a different course. We haven’t done any grids, we just go out and jump courses and talk about it, and then jump another course and talk about it, and then jump another course…! We’ll be on a horse each and go out and jump a whole bunch of fences, so he’ll do four fences and then I’ll do the same four; I get to watch him and then he watches me and tells me what I can do better, and then I’ll watch him go again and then I can compare, it’s a really good way to do it.”
Bullet Proof (formerly known as Clifton Razz) in the wind and rain formerly known as “British Summer” at Barbury
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Of course there’s the aforementioned language challenge so Jock is hard pressed to give me any pearls of wisdom straight from Michael himself, but I do manage to glean a tidbit of information out of him,
“He wants me to ride mine to give them a little more room in front of the fence. I normally like to ride mine right up to the fence and drop the reins, and either they jump it well or they give it a rub; he wants mine to be a little bit more off the fence and make the horse jump a little bit more up and out which is normally the ride I give them at a competition, but at home I like to challenge them a little bit more.” and as for Michael himself, ” No tricks, no gadgets or anything, he just rides well, he trains well and rides good horses so that’s how they jump! They have a lot of really nice horses, they all come out and move and jump and Michael rides them so well, so it’s a good mix. Its a little bit different to what I’m used to for my style, but they’re a little bit different horses as well so you have to take that into account.”
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Jock is also a becoming a big fan of Michael’s father,
“Joachim is fantastic to work with, it’s a good mix. I think Michael and his father must work together a bit but you don’t get to see it much, Michael’s quite busy, he’s comes in and rides all his horses and then he goes and does whatever he needs to do. I’m here at the end of the season so obviously I don’t see what happens during the middle of the season but certainly his father is there all day, and Michael’s there all day, and as I’m having a lesson he might see Michael do something good and compliment him; he’s there as eyes on the ground but I don’t think he teaches him so much. I haven’t seen Joachim ride, only teach. He just has a little bit of a different style in the way he wants me to sit and in the way the horse goes, things that you always work on. Everyone has their basic principles and fundamentals that they train in their everyday work, and everyone has their own little stamp and they have their little stamp. His father has a really nice way with the horses, he never wants to get after them, we just work them and train them and practice things like, for example, we’ll do a center line and if we lose one step we’ll go again and do the center line, and if we lose one step we’ll go again and do the center line until we can get every step and then go on to the next thing. In a really nice way he’s a bit of a perfectionist, but the horses really enjoy their work at the same time. I don’t think their horses would ever feel drilled. They have a great way of training, a really nice approach to it, I think the horses really enjoy their work with them.”
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During his stay in Germany Jock also managed to squeeze in a visit to the German Masters at Stuttgart where he competed in the Indoor Eventing on Clifton Lush, a first time for both of them, “That was something different, it was really cool. If it works and I’ve got a horse that wouldn’t be bothered by it I’d be tempted to do it again, but I worry with those things that if you’ve got a horse that isn’t suited to that job then you take them out next time and they’re still thinking about it; for me my focus is eventing and the major events and I’ll be starting to work towards that – if it fits in I’d do it but otherwise I wouldn’t take the risk with a horse that I didn’t think was cut out for it.”
True to form not a minute was wasted, and Jock may have spotted his next mentor whilst spectating,
“I’d love to go and spend time and observe lots of different people, I just watched Pessoa do a show-jumping round last night and now I want to see if I can do it with him! It doesn’t matter what you do or how good you are, you can always learn a better ride, or another specific ride and I think there’s a lot more specific rides than people think, and I think the important thing to learn in the ride is seeing the training behind it and I’d like to be able to pull off every ride that I want to, and I think I need to learn what’s behind them all, so for me working with guys like Michael, Mark (Todd) Luis (Cervera) , and hopefully I’m going to get the chance to work with George Morris this year which I’ve done before in New Zealand and I really enjoyed – I’m working with the greats and I’m really happy just to have this chance.”
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Jock and Clifton Promise – 6th at Rolex CCI****, 10th at London Olympics and 2nd Pau CCI**** 2012
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Although the Kiwis don’t have a Championship next year because they obviously aren’t eligible for the Europeans, Jock has big plans for the major CCI**** regardless, including his new ride Shady Grey,
“Probably Saumur, I’d like to do some French tracks seeing as the 2014 World Equestrian Games will be in Normandy and it was interesting for me to go and ride around Pau, that was a different course to see and ride so I’d like to see more French courses before the WEG. Then maybe Luhmuhlen and Pau, we’ll see how he goes.”
Jock already has some experience on Shady Grey dating a few years back, “I rode the horse when I was at Andrew’s in 2009. I stayed with Andrew for a while then and it was very similar to what I’m doing now with Michael except when I was with Andrew he let me jump some of his horses, and I got to watch all of them. Shady Grey was one of the ones I jumped; I liked him and Andrew kept letting me ride him. After the Olympics Andrew and I were on a plane together coming back from New Zealand talking about horsepower and I was saying I needed to build up the gaps in my string, so he suggested I come to his place and try a couple.”
Clifton Promise and Clifton Lush will be headed for Badminton and Burghley, “If all goes to plan which it very rarely does, and then I’d like to bring one to Kentucky again, I love Kentucky so I’d like to bring Bullet Proof there.” Jock is also definitely keen on returning to Pau in the autumn after his inaugural and very successful trip there this year for 2nd place on Clifton Promise,
“It was just different the fences, the style, the theme of the course was very different. I think every course has it’s own theme and the theme that Pau had was very different, I hadn’t seen anything like that, and I think that’s why it’s important that you learn specific rides because it just needed a different ride and I think that’s the trick to cross country – giving each fence the ride it needs. Promise really loves his job, it would be great to have him at the WEG and at the Olympics if he’s still going but I think Lush will be challenging him for his spot now, Lush put in a great performance at Burghley and he just keeps on getting better and better, it’s good to have them both around.”
It’s good to have Jock around – I’d like to thank him for his time, and thank you for reading. Go Clifton and Jock Paget Eventing!
