Tinks, Amanda and Stoked (who, no matter how hard we tried, refused to put his ears forward!)
We all know how important mums are in the eventing world, whether it’s as a chauffeur in the early days or as a mentor and supporter as their rider progresses through the ranks. Recently we have been featuring some ‘Eventing Mums’ in our interviews and when Debbie Higgs was in New Zealand she caught up with a very famous eventing ‘mum’ Tinks Pottinger and her eventing rider daughter, Amanda.
Tinks (who was christened Judy) is well known in Australia as the winner of the Gawler Three Day event in 1985 riding her horse Volunteer. The following year at the 1986 World Championships, also held at Gawler, Tinks was in the lead heading into the show jumping day and looked hopeful of a gold medal when Volunteer was controversially vetted out by the Ground Jury at the second horse inspection (subsequent to this the FEI introduced the holding box at horse inspections where an examining vet advises the Ground Jury)
Despite this set back Tinks and Volunteer finished fourth at Burghley in 1987 and fourth at Badminton in 1988. In the same year they were in the bronze medal winning team at the 1988 Seoul Olympics along with her good friend and mentor Mark Todd. She was fifth in the individual competition here, only 3.8 points behind the bronze medallist, Virginia Holgate (Ginny Leng) of Great Britain
Tinks walks the course with Andrew Nicholson and the young NZ riders at Puhinui
Tinks was no ‘one horse wonder’ however, winning a total of 10 national eventing titles in New Zealand on seven different horses and today her involvement in the New Zealand eventing world is still strong. She has coached Young Rider Trans-Tasman teams and became Leader for New Zealand’s Eventing Performance Squad Programme in 2011, a programme designed to identify riders over the age of 18 who have the ability to impact on future NZ High Performance Squads.
One of these up and coming riders is Tinks’ daughter, 22 year old Amanda, and we caught up with them both at Puhinui International 3 Day Event where Amanda was riding one of her young horses, Stoked.
Thank you to the delightful Tinks and Amanda for taking the time to chat as we find out more about the mother/daughter relationship in eventing, Amanda’s plans for 2014, the importance of a support base for young riders overseas and the three generations of talented Pottinger riders.
Debbie Higgs talks to Tinks and Amanda Pottinger
Amanda and Stoked
