Read last week’s article US Eventing – Now What? Part 1: Sinead Halpin
Jon Holling and Quigase Du Lac earlier this year
In the second part of our series we talk to Jon Holling. Selected to represent the US at the Pan Am Games last year in Mexico with the precociously talented Downtown Harrison until a heartbreaking lameness at the very last minute prevented them from making the trip, this year they’ve bounced back with stunning form – 2nd at Fair Hill CIC***, winning the Bromont CCI*** and selected to go to Boekelo as part of the US Nations Cup Team. Jon, like many horsemen, is no stranger to disappointment. He reels off a laundry list of boards, committees and councils that he variously sits on, governs, chairs, I can barely write quick enough, “…USEF Eventing Committee, USEA board of Governors, VP of Active Athletes on the USEA Executive Committee, Chairman PHC, Nominating Committee of USEA…” and explained that several years ago it was partly a run of bad luck that spurred him to action, “In 2008 when everything was going wrong with the sport and I saw all of us as riders complaining, I looked at who was on the boards and at that point there were two riders on the boards actively doing stuff. One of my horses was one of the ones that had an accident that year and although I didn’t blame anyone for it, I felt that if I thought that things needed to be changed then I needed to be a part of it, so that was a conscious choice at that point to get more involved in the behind-the-scenes action of the sport.”
Since becoming involved Jon has been instrumental in several changes, “In general we’ve been trying to make it a better sport for everybody, really and truly make it more user-friendly – easier for professionals to make a living and easier for amateurs to go out and have a good time.”
In his role at the Professional Horseman’s Council Jon helped finalise a rule to mandate an additional oxer in the show-jumping warm-up, and a solid fence in the cross country warm-up, something that may not seem like a big deal now but faced a lot of opposition at the time, and he’s also been partly responsible for the Rider Reps, although he admits that’s still a work in progress, “there are still some changes that need to be made to make it easier for one day events and make it work a little bit better, and for riders to fulfill their responsibilities, but I think that’s starting to work pretty well.”
Jon and Downtown Harrison at The Fork this spring
Running his own business in Ocala with horses to train, students to teach, a wife and a young son means that time is at a premium, but Jon takes the commitment seriously, and once again I’m struck by how lucky the US is to have young riders such as Jon, Sinead, Allison, Doug (to come in next instalments) and so many others who are hard-working, talented, thoughtful and smart, and are willing to put something back into the sport, and try to make a difference,
“I’ve really tried to be a voice for the riders, a strong voice but a reasonable voice in all the USEA decisions, and I do wield a lot of influence in all the board decisions, in all the things we’ve talked about such as the warm-up jumps and riders reps, as well as things like the AECS and three day events and where they should be. Not that I have any more say than anyone else but as a rider I think it’s important that I do the best that I can for all of the riders. Now there’s a good handful of professional riders with Leslie (Law), Allison (Springer) and Peter (Grey) on the board this year so we’re starting to have more of a say and more input which I think is really important.”
Jon doesn’t have to be a lone voice in the wilderness – he encourages you to look up the USEA representative in your area and email them if you have any ideas or issues you’d like to discuss, and take part on a regular basis, help out and volunteer. The riders at his event delivered lunches to the jump judges which was a huge success, “All that stuff goes a long long way. If people want to give back and have more a voice, put yourself out there and get nominated to be on committees and boards; there are so many committees that need good, strong people, and we have such a small handful of volunteers who are willing to serve on all these committees and councils and on the boards; the burnout rate is so high, I can tell you myself it gets exhausting after a while, so we do need people who can help.”
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Although the USEA doesn’t deal with the High Performance or Team issues directly, it is still relevant Jon explains,
“It’s the USEA’s job to make sure that the competitions are right, that the judging is right, to make sure that things are on a par over here with what they are in Europe and I think that’s a huge thing; there is an argument to be made that horses over here that are scoring in the low forties in FEI tend to go over to Europe and score in the fifties and that’s a problem. I don’t think it’s as important that we’re competing against William and Andrew and Michael, I think what’s more important is that we’re getting judged comparably.
“I think we have to be careful how much we compare ourselves to the Europeans because we live in a very different country. We can’t do it like the Germans or the British do it – they live in a much smaller pool; just by the nature of where they live they’re competing against each other a lot more. We’ve done it our way very successfully for many years, and Australia has done it very successfully too, and yes, they have some riders based in Europe, but I would argue that they have some very good riders based in Australia who have been and could still be very competitive internationally. We need to know what everyone else is doing, and we need to obviously improve what we’re doing, but I would be reluctant to say we have to have a full-scale change to what we’ve done over the years.
“I think it’s slightly ironic that Mark Phillips has been in England during his whole career with the US; people give him a hard time about not developing talent in this country but I think that’s purely been because he’s not based here. I think having David now, one of the biggest plusses is that he’s going to be here, he’s going to be at a lot of events watching a lot of people ride a lot of different horses. I don’t know that he’s going to have time to coach more people in the training sessions than Mark did, but he’s going to watch a lot more, he’s going to see a lot more, he’s going to scout out a lot more on his own. I think that Mark, just because of who he is, as far as basically being as close to royalty as I’ve ever known (!), he has a certain aura about him that if you don’t know him it makes it hard to go up to him and approach him, whereas David is a much more approachable person and it might just open that up a little more.”
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A truly well-rounded horseman, Jon can also add Event Organiser to his resume, as he runs a series of events out of the Ocala Horse Park with Peter Gray – the Ocala Horse Properties Series. Footing and cross country design are extremely close to his heart; amongst many other things PHC has been innovative in adopting standardised testing for footing akin to racecourses (“going: good to firm, soft, etc”) and would eventually like to see it become mainstream at all events. his cross country course designer Jay Hambly makes regular trips to Europe to stay current, “I think that helps keep him fresh and also know what level the playing field is really at. Even if you meet all the specifications on paper that doesn’t mean you’re putting the right track together.”
Jon is preparing to head to Europe himself. If things go to plan, he tells me a touch superstitiously, and who can blame him – he dropped his son off at school last week and said goodbye hopefully for the last time in a month before heading up to compete at Plantation Field in Pennsylvania this weekend. He’ll remain there until he travels to The Netherlands with Downtown Harrison, “I actually think these Nations Cups could be huge, because the more that people can get used to the team environment and get put into situations like this, the better they’re going to be, getting the chance to compete on a team, to compete against the best. Even the Training Sessions for the Developing Riders can be daunting for the first time, riding alongside Phillip, Karen and Boyd…it can be a little overwhelming dealing with that so the more they can do that the better.”
Jon and Downtown Harrison
Finally, I ask Jon what he hopes to see during the next few years for the US team,
“I hope that people are patient, although having said that I do think that we could do the WEG or the next Olympics and do very well; what I want to see put in place is a really good programme, a programme where the riders feel like they have a legitimate shot, where they aren’t feeling like they’re doing their own thing out on an island and then it all has to come together at the right time – a good broad-based programme, where David’s at the top but he has good people underneath him to keep things going. At the end of the day, what I think we should be doing as a national programme is that every person who goes into a training session, whether they make the team or not, should come out feeling like they’re better for having been there, and I’m not sure that always happened – I think because of the team selection process, because of having to pick at the last minute the horses get trained a little too hard, the riders get a little fried, the horses get a little bit fried, and I think quite honestly you come out the other side not as competitive. I think it’s hard to compare the Pan Ams to the Olympics but having been a part of the Pan Ams, we were named early, and we were all genuinely there for each other, even the alternates. We were excited, and we trained our horses to win that competition, not to make the team, and I think that was a big part of the success of the team. Personally I would like to see some version of earlier team selection be a part of the process, I think that’s huge, and I think having David based over here will make that easier because he can stay on top of it, and make sure that those people who are selected are doing what they’re supposed to, and not bubble-wrapping their horses too early. I think that would be a very small change that could make a very big difference.”
Many, many thanks to Jon for his time, and to everyone who’s helped me so far with this ongoing series – as well as the riders you read about there are so many people who work tirelessly behind the scenes, we all owe them huge debts of gratitude. Please check back next week and in coming weeks for the next installments including Allison Springer and Doug Payne. Thank you for reading, and Go US Eventing!
