No Olympics meant Mustang had a few weeks off
It was very interesting for me to watch the eventing at the Olympic games this year. Having spent many years training and preparing and gaining support for this one target and to get the disappointing news that I was not going, well it shakes you up a bit. I had put everything into this action of going on a big plane all the way to England and that is what I was going to do, then … no, that was not the case! And then the next day the sun still came up and there were still jobs needing to be done and it appeared that actually life keeps on going and it has!
Unfortunately being on TV so late I didn’t capture all of the performances and have mostly seen the highlights. But for me the most impressive of the whole event was Chris Burton’s cross country round - he did a fantastic job showing real guts and determination to get the job done.
However I will start back at the dressage and my most noted point from that was the scores. Over here in Australia our top placed riders have had dressage scores at the major competitions generally been between 40-46. At the recent major competitions overseas in France and Germany the overseas based Australian competitors had the top riders scoring much closer to 30. Were their dressage tests really almost ten points better than what we can do here at home? I found it interesting then that when the scores came out at the Games those overseas based Australians had scored between 40-46. Also comparing tests I have seen Australian based horses do to what I saw the horses at the games, Australian based riders and horses are not at all ten points behind our overseas team mates, but was this a factor in the selection of the overseas based combinations? You could then look into reasons why these low overseas dressage scores could be coming up, but as I haven't been over there and experienced it myself I would only be giving my observation from quite a distance.
I thought Chris looked great
After Chris burning up the cross country and looking great I definitely thought we would still be in a good position before the show jumping. Then as I saw a few more riders go through I thought to myself the Olympic Games are really a unique event. You have the best riders of the most competitive countries and the best riders of the not so competitive countries. It is a very diverse event compared to a Badminton where the field consists of the best in the world. Watching some of them drop like flies and then the ‘rough tough Aussies’ who have been renowned for decades as being the best cross country riders in the world were also dropping like flies! Oh gosh! It was definitely disappointing to realise at that moment we were out of the medal contention. But just as I said life goes on and over the next four years many riders will once again saddle up, work hard and prepare themselves for another shot at winning a medal for their country.
The next point that got me interested, is what does it take to get the opportunity to compete for your country at an Olympics? Well in my opinion you need good results - winning and beating all your team mates is the most obvious and best way of securing your position on a team. Being reliable and consistent performer is good but there also seems to be the need for the experience factor and not necessarily the horse. It appears that if you haven't been to a World Championship event you are not 'experienced' enough go to a World Championship event. Which is really a tricky thing for Australian based talented up and coming riders, because how do you get this 'experience' factor even though you have been competing and training for years at 3* and 4* level. What are the next steps that would get you more noticed and get yourself over the line in the selectors eyes?
I’m afraid that competing overseas at a major 4* competition and beating the overseas based riders might be the only way one can break through this fixed idea. And good on the people who go and do that, but I tend to agree with comments Christine Bates made in her blog (click here) about what might happen to eventing in Australia if this is encouraged and favoured by high performance. We don't want our sport to end up like it has in New Zealand, we want to keep the best combinations in Australia and keep the sport of eventing strong on home soil.
While the result of this games has been disappointing for the riders we know they put every effort into getting the best result possible, just as all good Australian sports people do. I look forward to watching the rest of the showjumping, fingers crossed it goes smoothly.
On a personal note, Mustang has had a couple of weeks chilling with an occasional hoon, buck and a jump for entertainment. He will soon resume light work and then we will make the next plan. And I managed to spend some time doing normal things (see photo above) like taking a day off to wander round Sydney with my partner Tony Twomey.
Emma
