It sounded like he was being dive-bombed by sea-planes when I spoke with Pedro Cebulka last week. “That’s another one coming over now”, he’d say with a laugh as our conversation about his life and times had to be put on hold again and again.

He and his wife, Janet, were staying at a cabin belonging to some friends on a camper-van trip around Vancouver Island in British Columbia just a few days before heading back to their Canadian home on the lake at Invermere. The man known in the equestrian world as “Pedro the Ringmaster” has an insatiable lust for travel, and simply loves being on the road.

To those who watch him turning chaos into order at so many of the major events on the international equestrian circuit it seems near-impossible that he has time to do anything else. But this multi-faceted character has significant business interests, a second home in Mexico where he and Janet live a different lifestyle, a great passion for music and for animal welfare, and a powerful sense of social responsibility. It’s quite difficult to keep up with him to be honest, but I give it my best shot….

“I have a Spanish first name, Polish last name, German and Canadian passports, a Dutch wife who is now also Canadian and two Canadian kids who also have German passports, so I’m really mixed up!”, he begins. However Pedro isn’t his birth name. He was born Peter Cebulka but changed it to the Spanish version after falling in love with the Latin outlook on life on his first visit to Brazil in 1976 at the age of 24.

Banking

By then he had already been very successful in the world of banking, and was on course for a university degree in Economics. But as he said when we spoke, “it wasn’t what I was meant for…..”.

He was only 15 years old when he took up a three-year apprenticeship at Deutsche Bank before moving to Hamburg where his career really took off over the next five years, “I was good at stocks and bonds and I worked my way up to the Stock Exchange”, he says. But, in his own inimitable way, Pedro also had a side-line. 

“A friend of mine had a lovely pub in Lueneburg, so I worked in the bank five days a week and on Saturday morning I was a bar-tender in the pub and on Sunday morning I was a waiter. I had Sunday afternoon off and then on Sunday evening I was a bar-tender again and I learned a lot from those days. How to communicate with all kinds of people from all walks of life, how to make them happy and comfortable and how to deal with them if there was a problem”, he explains.

A trip to Brazil dramatically changed the course of his career in 1976. “After three weeks there I decided to hell with Economics, the world is too beautiful, so I stayed in South America for five months and I never looked back!” he says. “I saw Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, the Galapagos Islands, Machu Picchu, I learned Spanish and I met many wonderful people”. 

Chance meeting

With his new-found taste for freedom he set off the following year on a world tour with a group of friends, and on his way through Banff in Canada a chance meeting would turn his life in another new direction. “It was August 1977, and I met a Swiss guy who said he was working at a new equestrian centre called Spruce Meadows and that if I wanted a job I could work there as a carpenter/helper for a few days so I did that. And when we were laid off, the riding master Albert Kley who came from the same area as me in Germany, said I could help out at the show coming up in September so I stayed and worked on maintenance and other things around the showgrounds”, Pedro explains.

By then Ron Southern, founder of Spruce Meadows and Chairman of the Calgary-based ATCO Group, had encountered the enthusiastic young German and they formed a strong bond. “He treated me like a stepson”, Pedro says.

It was only the second year of the now world-renowned Masters Tournament, and Pedro’s multiple skills were called into play as an interpreter for visiting teams and their crews, as an announcer in German and Spanish and as a course-builder. Over the next five years he would divide his time between helping out at Spruce Meadows and working as a Tour Guide. 

“I was a Guide for several years in South America, Central America, South East Asia and in many exotic countries where I could help German tourists feel at home. It was a wonderful time”, he recalls.

Course-building

During this period he also expanded his course-building expertise under the guiding hand of the legendary British course-designer Pam Carruthers who was responsible for the development of Spruce Meadows in the early years. Both Pam and Ron Southern encouraged Pedro to go to Europe for experience, and in 1979 he assisted at the FEI European Championships in Rotterdam (NED) before being invited to help at Hickstead (GBR). He remembers one particularly frenetic afternoon at the big British event. 

“The course crew always took a break around 2.30pm, and one afternoon myself and a lady called Penny who was about 85 years old were the only ones in the arena when a rider came in. He had a refusal and destroyed an early fence so I had to run over and put it together again, and then he had another refusal on the other side of the arena and I was running around like crazy to find poles and trying to keep things going. And then he came down to the last fence and ploughed through that and it was a huge job to get it back in place before the next horse came in - all while the rest of the crew were having their afternoon tea!”, he says with a laugh. 

Pam told him there was no point in going on to Dublin Horse Show looking for work. “But after three days of pestering, Steve Hickey (Irish course designer) took me under his wing and I had the best of times working with him!”, Pedro says. It was all part of Ron Southern’s advice to stay open to new ideas. “At many of the old shows they would say ‘it’s tradition, we do it this way and we can’t change”, but in Spruce Meadows we borrowed the good ideas and always kept an open mind.”

From 1983 to 1985 Pedro enjoyed some special years working full-time at Spruce Meadows and managing the Equitana (now Equi-Fair) trade show. He and Janet were married in Hawaii in 1984, and their daughters Stephanie and Jessica arrived over the next two years. But in 1986 Pedro decided to leave Spruce Meadows for health reasons. He was burned out. “I loved what I was doing but physically it was too much, I’d start at 7am and work until midnight and I had high blood pressure”, he explains. 

Selling dreams

He took up a job as a salesman with Fairmont Hot Springs Resort in the Rocky Mountains, “I loved it because we were selling dreams to customers”, he says.  In 1988 he also got involved in a time-share business in Mexico, and then Don and Carol Seable invited Pedro to become a partner in the Fairmont business. A whole new chapter of his life was opening up, and he would go on to become a land developer in his own right and would establish his own condominium management company. But he didn’t sever his connections with Spruce Meadows. 

Asked to help at the in-gate as a starter for the horse shows, he jumped at the chance. “They wanted someone who knew the riders, who was strong enough so they would be listened to, but not a little little general yelling because now he thinks he’s a policeman!” Pedro learned a lot from these early days in command of the arena gateway. “It taught me to be kind but firm”, says the man who continues to show those two important qualities to this day.

I ask him if being so tall - at least 6ft 3ins - helps when he is trying to instil discipline into proceedings, and he laughs. “Yes, size matters, but what I find now after 43 years doing this job is that 43 years matter! Someone once said anyone can be a superstar for one year, but the best athletes are on top over a long period of time. Like the Whitakers, like Nick (Skelton), like David Broome, like Ludger (Beerbaum). I’ve been doing this job a long time”.

Here to help

He says he never found the job of getting riders into the ring promptly, or making sense out of chaotic prizegiving ceremonies or ceremonial occasions, a problem because his mantra to the riders is ‘I’m here to help you’. He had the ultimate pressure from the outset at Spruce Meadows with live TV demanding spot-on timing. “That’s where my German background kicks in - I give the riders the countdown and it has to be done. If someone is late going in I don’t say anything, but when they come out….”

He says that Mexican businessman and political advisor Alfonso Romo from the world-famous La Silla Stud in Monterrey tells a story about his first encounter with Pedro the Ringmaster.

“I was competing at Spruce Meadows and I was a sponsor of a new building so I was a VIP guest of honour and this guy (Pedro) calls me in Spanish. I’m a little bit late, just a minute or so, and when I come out he says to me very nicely, Poncho when you have the horse put away can you come and see me? He says I’ve 50 riders here with 50 different systems of working their horses and we have live TV. When you have your system you do what you want, but when you are in my ring you do my system or you’re going home!”  

Apparently Senor Romo didn’t do it again. 

"If everyone is late then the warm-up of 50 riders doesn’t work. I don’t have time to say please - I learned from Pamela Carruthers to do it in military style, we are here to work and that’s it. I may come across as a bit harsh, but in essence the word is “now!”"

Pedro says he’s doesn’t take it personally on the rare occasions that his instructions are ignored. “And I’ve learned over the last six Olympics that they are like nothing else. I’d rather have a rule broken then get a rider upset before they go in - the pressure they are under is incredible. But of course I have the TV director shouting at me so it’s a very fine line…”, he points out.

Stand-out moments

I ask about moments that stand out for him down the years. “There are so many I get goosebumps just thinking about them! There was Ian Millar (CAN) at the Pan-American Games in 1999 when he came to the gate - with a broken foot - and I’m telling him there are four more to go and you are in fifth, then three to go and now you’re in third, the next rider had eight faults and he was in silver and then the last rider went and he had the gold. It felt so good, he’s been a friend to me from the beginning….

“And the high five I got from Eric Lamaze (CAN) - I’ve been with him through good and bad - when he won the gold in Hong Kong (Beijing 2008 Olympic Games)! That evening I carried him to the media party on my shoulders and we were dancing and celebrating until four in the morning!

“Everyone is your friend when you win but for me a real friend is the one who is there when you are down, so Marcus Ehning (GER) at the European Championships in Mannheim (GER) in 2007 where Kuchengirl stopped again and again. He goes on the podium to get the team gold medal without jumping a single round and he’s crying with the medal around his neck…..I’ll never forget that. But I’ll never forget him winning the Global Final with her in Rio (Brazil) a few years later either. It was a huge win and I was there for that too - it was a great moment!” 

I ask him about the extraordinary costumes he wears in his Ringmaster role - what inspires them? “It all started when I bought a pink hat in Hawaii and people liked it. I went on to a military hat, a Mountie uniform, I put crazy things together wherever I went. In 2010 Animo sponsored my tails and now I have a few of them designed by Franco Dragone. I rent some of them too - they make people smile!”, he says. 

Music

The first time I met Pedro, back in the 1980s, he was playing a tin whistle at a party and he hasn’t stopped since. He’s a great musician and can be found entertaining all and sundry at every after-party. He inherited his musical bent from his mother and his craving for travel from the fact that his father never got to live out his travel ambitions.

Imprisoned during WWll, his dad just wanted to live a quiet life, never owning a car or a house and happy to go to work by bus, walking or cycling. He intended travelling after his retirement aged 60, but his wife died of cancer in 1976 while Pedro was in Ecuador. It’s a painful memory. 

“They had applied for passports to go back to Poland to see where she was born but my father said they should wait, and two weeks after my mother’s funeral the passports arrived and my father cried. He lived two more years. His first dream was to go to Hamburg - just 53 kilometres from where we lived in Uelzen - when the time was right, but he never made it. So I learned when you want to travel, you travel”, Pedro says with great sadness.

Positive outlook

But he is a man with a hugely positive outlook on life and who lives it to the full. He tells me he’s keeping fit, “I need that in my job”, he’s eating healthily, he cycles and he walks the family’s two rescue dogs every day. They were both strays, Santo attaching himself to Janet on Santa Barbara beach in California in 2011 and Mexi latching onto them when they overnighted in a parking lot at the Mexican border 18 months ago. 

“We are very much involved with dog rescue down in the Baja (California peninsula) and I do Master of Ceremonies at fundraisers to help out”, Pedro explains.

I finally ask him about his thoughts on coping with the current situation created by the pandemic that continues to restrict, and affect, life and sport. He says he’s inspired by para-athletes because they have so much to put up with, but never complain. 

“I can’t speak for people who have lost their jobs and everything, it’s too hard. But there are also people who could do better but let themselves get dragged down - you have to try to be positive and make the best out of it. 

“We send money down to friends in Mexico on the beach to help because it’s really tough for them. JustWorld (Pedro is an Ambassador) is an official FEI partner and works with thousands of kids who need food, so if you can help with this or any other charities then do. The world needs everyone to do their best right now”.

Not too many people have been to 17 Olympic Games in their lifetime, but retired British journalist Alan Smith most certainly has. In a career that spanned 48 years he reported on no less than nine Summer and eight Winter Games along with all the major equestrian Championships between 1960 and 2008. “And I enjoyed every moment of it!”, he said when we spoke recently.

His decision to call it a day after the Beijing Games marked the end of an era. The classic newspaperman who was always dapper in his shirt and tie, and whose battered brown-leather briefcase heralded the presence of journalistic royalty in media centres around the world, is sorely missed. He played a significant role in the story of modern equestrian sport, not just as a writer but also as a Committee member in the early years of the FEI Jumping World Cup™ series, and holds the respect and admiration of athletes, luminaries and colleagues alike.

He’s looking forward to watching racing from Ascot on the afternoon I call, and that makes me smile. No matter what event he attended he always liked to “have a flutter on the ponies” on any given afternoon. He inherited that passion from his father, whose ill-health during Alan’s teenage years led to his son’s decision to set aside the offer of a place at Reading University and instead take on a job with Brenards Air Services News Agency at London Airport - now Heathrow and one of the largest travel hubs in the world but, according to Alan “just a collection of prefabricated shacks back then!” 

He was only 18 years old at the time, “but quite frankly we needed the money, my father was too ill to work, and I have to say it was the best training I could possibly have had. You had to be fast and accurate, and the stories were immediately circulated to all the newspapers” he explains. A bout of the debilitating lung disease, Tuberculosis, brought this job to an end however.

Recovery

Following his recovery he worked in the Pedigree Department of the British Bloodstock Agency and then moved on to the Racing staff of the Sheffield Telegraph newspaper. But he wanted to return to his home-town of London, “so I wrote to all sorts of different papers, including The Sporting Life and The Telegraph (The Daily Telegraph)”, he explains.

His first encounter with the latter was a boozy one, not an entirely uncommon feature of the newspaper world in those days. “The Sports Editor, Frank Coles, brought me straight into the King and Keys pub next door where we drank for a couple of hours and talked about the best way to get from Sheffield to London because the motorways hadn’t been built at that stage, and then I put him in a taxi to go home and I went back to Sheffield”, Alan recalls. 

But when he got back, there was a letter from The Sporting Life offering him a job. So he phoned Frank the following day, told him about the job offer but said he’d rather work for The Telegraph, and was asked ‘when would you like to start?’ 

“If that letter hadn’t arrived I wouldn’t have phoned him and I’m sure he would have forgotten all about me, so that was lucky!”, Alan says with a laugh.

A bit of showjumping

Not long after he joined the Racing Department at The Telegraph, Deputy Sports Editor Kingsley Wright asked the new recruit if he’d like to ‘do a bit’ of showjumping coverage, and that request would begin the journey that would continue for almost a half-century.

In 1961 Alan covered the FEI Junior European Championships at Hickstead, and he was keen to do it again the following year so he cautiously approached his editor to get his approval. “He liked horses, he liked me, and he liked the things I’d done already. So his first question was “did we cover them last year old boy?”, and I said “of course Kingsley yes”, and he said “well you better cover them this year then”. However Alan didn’t explain that the 1962 Championships would be held in Berlin (GER). “So off I went and called into the Nations Cup show in Rotterdam on the way back, and from then on my international career was on its way!”, he says with another laugh.

By the end of that year he was just providing Kingsley with a list of all the events he intended to go to, “and until I stopped they never questioned where I was going, they felt I knew better than they did what ought to be covered and, needless to say, the places I travelled to were all the nicest ones!” 

He arrived on the equestrian scene at a really good time. “I was very lucky because showjumping was regularly televised and incredibly popular with the public, so in the 60s, 70s and most of the 80s every newspaper had someone writing about it”, Alan explains. 

Skiing

In those days the horse show season ran from March to October, so to keep him busy over the winter months Alan was additionally allocated skiing coverage in 1965. It wasn’t a hardship.

“My first outing was to St Moritz (SUI), ostensibly to cover the British Army Ski Championships but it just so happened the same week the World Bob Championships were taking place. Britain’s Tony Nash and Robin Dickson, who won gold in Innsbruck (AUT) in ’84, were defending their title and it was brilliant because they won again. For 34 years I covered winter sports, and the first Olympics I went to were winter ones in Grenoble (FRA) in 1968. And again we were very lucky, we had the most brilliant women’s team that year. Gina Hawthorn missed a bronze medal by 300ths of a second and was fourth. Britain still hasn’t ever won an Olympic alpine skiing medal!”, he points out. 

Alan recalls that one of the members of that women’s ski team was Di Tomkinson whose mother skied at the Munich Olympics and whose daughter, Emma Pitt, owned Supreme Rock - the superb Event horse that carried Great Britain’s Pippa Funnell to team silver at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney (AUS). “Three generations of Olympic connection there”, he points out. 

Luck on his side

He feels luck was on side in his early career with the launch of the showgrounds at Hickstead, the appointment of HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh as FEI President and the establishment of the International Alliance of Equestrian Journalists (IAEJ) by Max Ammann. Prince Philip invited a representative of the IAEJ to attend the FEI General Assembly in Brussels (BEL) and Alan filled that role, building a lasting relationship with the Duke whose presidency spanned 24 years. 

“He was a lovely man to deal with, straight and to the point. He wrote the rules for competitive Driving and he started the World Equestrian Games (WEG). The first edition of the WEG at Stockholm (SWE) was supposed to be a one-off, but it was so good they decided to do it again in The Hague (NED). However if The Hague had been the inaugural World Games there would never have been a second one!”, he says, reflecting on the event that ended in financial bankruptcy. 

Things moved on rapidly after the FEI Jumping World Cup™ series was created in 1978. “For the first 20 years that Volvo was sponsoring it I was on the World Cup Committee so I attended a lot of the shows. You couldn’t find a better sponsor’s representative than Ulf Bergqvist and he, Max (Ammann) and I became very close friends”, Alan explains.

The technological age hadn’t arrived, so reports were still filed to copy-takers from hotel telephones, and calls often took hours to be connected.

Arrival of the Tandy

The arrival of the Tandy, one of the earliest PCs, revolutionised things. Alan’s first encounter with one was at the Seoul Olympic Games in 1988 when all he had to do was type in his stories because The Telegraph sent a technician to transmit the copy. Alan remembers those Games well. “They were pretty dramatic because the Canadian sprinter, Ben Johnson, was disqualified for doping so we all had to cover that too and I felt like a proper newspaperman for once!”, he says. 

His first Olympic reporting gig in Munich in 1972 was even more memorable. “Britain claimed team gold in Eventing and Ann Moore and Psalm took showjumping individual silver”, he recalls. But the world was horrified by the terrorist attack that left 11 Israeli athletes dead, and four days before the end of the Games Alan received a distressing phone call from his wife, Maddie, who had given birth to their son, Alex, just four weeks earlier. “She told me he’d been taken ill and was in an incubator and not expected to survive. I couldn’t wait to get home, so I jumped on a plane the next morning and thankfully he did survive - and he thrived!”

Favourite horses

I ask him about his favourite horses from his era, and he first names Merely a Monarch. “He was a top-level Event horse ridden by Anneli Drummond-Hay, and because women weren’t allowed to ride at the Olympics in Eventing the horse was diverted to showjumping and within months was a top-class jumper. He was wonderful. Fulke Walwyn, a very successful racehorse trainer at the time, said he could have trained him to win the Grand National as well! 

“Cornishman was a great horse, he won (Eventing) team gold for Mary Gordon-Watson in Munich but she was injured before the previous Games in Mexico and Richard Meade rode him to team gold there. It’s a very rare horse that wins gold medals with two different riders at Olympic level. And he made nothing of the World Championship course in Punchestown in 1970 that caused havoc for so many others - he was probably as good a cross-country horse as I’ve ever seen.

“And Marion Coakes’ little Stroller who jumped his heart out in the individual at the Mexico Games to take silver. They were such a great partnership, very successful together all the way from Junior to Olympic level and a credit to the sport from beginning to end”, he says.

Favourite riders

And what about his favourite riders? “There were so many……(Great Britain’s) John and Michael Whitaker, David Broome, Harvey Smith…Harvey is such a character and he provided us with so many great stories! When he gave the judges the V-sign after winning the Hickstead Derby (in 1971), that was some day to remember - the publicity it attracted to the sport was phenomenal! 

“Bill Steinkraus (USA) was a really great rider and writer and he played the piano rather well too! And Bill Roycroft who broke his shoulder going cross-country at the Olympic Games in Rome but signed himself out of the hospital to ride the showjumping on the last day because otherwise Australia wouldn’t have won team gold! And Mark Todd (NZL), such a supreme horseman…..Alwin and Paul Schockemohle and Ludger Beerbaum (GER) were really nice guys and spoke better English than some of our British riders! Janou Lefebvre and Pierre Durand (FRA) - there were so many I can’t stop!”, he says.

I ask him to recall any bizarre happenings down the years. “There was a show in Tripoli, Libya in Col Ghadaffi’s day and a few British riders, Raymond Brooks-Ward and I and a couple of others were invited out there. The Grand Prix was won by a Libyan rider and suddenly the arena was filled with people shooting off their guns into the air - that was an unusual occasion I have to say!!

And then there was Lucinda Greene wandering around Fontainebleau (FRA) on dressage day in a sort of daze saying ‘I can’t find my horse, I don’t know where my horse is!’  when she was due to go into the arena just a few minutes later! The big stand-off between Tina Cassan (GBR) and the judges at the World Cup Final in Del Mar (USA) in 1992 because she said the clock started before her round began…that was epic, but Bill Steinkraus sorted it all out with his usual diplomatic flair!” 

Favourite memory

I ask for a favourite memory and of course I’m not surprised it’s a British one. “David Broome winning the World Championships at La Baule (FRA in 1970) - that was a fantastic competition. He was such a good rider. It was rare for any country to have two through to the Final four, and both David and Harvey qualified along with Graziano Mancinelli (ITA) and Alwin Schockemohle (GER). Mancinelli’s Fidux was a very difficult horse, but when David took his turn it was like he was riding on silk reins”.

And what about personal friendships made down the years? “Among journalists my great friend was Brian Giles of the Daily Mail who told me later that when we first met in La Baule he thought I was the most arrogant man he’d ever come across! Also Jenny MacArthur from The Times and Jenny Murphy from The Independent - I owe so much to Jenny Murphy because it was through her that I met Maddie”, he points out. In the course of his career Alan travelled the world with his lovely wife Maddie who sadly passed away in 2016. They were a beacon of togetherness on the circuit, and Maddie was always accompanied by the family dog when attending British fixtures.

Alan’s own equestrian exploits included “a bit of hunting” and the fun of competing in “The Scribbler’s Stakes”, a special jumping class for journalists at the world-famous Christmas Show at Olympia in London in 1973 and 1974 which were televised by the BBC. 

That was the heyday of equestrian sports coverage, when riders were household names, especially across Great Britain. Alan says it was the drive of people like Raymond Brooks-Ward and Bob Dean, creators of British Equestrian Promotions, that made the difference. 

"“They were so successful that in 1970 officials from the Football Association went to talk to them about how they could promote soccer, and look where that is today. Bob was prepared to do whatever was required to maximise publicity, even sending Ted Edgar out onto Kensington High Street riding a camel to promote Olympia!"

Legacy

Although Alan no longer frequents the equestrian circuit, his legacy is still very much in place. Throughout his career he set an example of professionalism, and the creation of the IAEJ has helped promote contact between journalists around the globe while also providing a conduit between the working equestrian press and the FEI.

He has always been a prolific writer, with not only years of newspaper coverage filed away but with his name on 14 book-covers including the latest - “Hickstead, A Golden Celebration” - published in 2010. And he’s not finished yet. He admitted to diving into his memoirs during his retirement, and they should make some reading when they see the light of day.

Looking back, Alan says he couldn’t have had a better career and that he enjoyed every minute of it. “The late, great Ian Wooldridge - for my money one of the best, and certainly the wittiest of sports writers - once told me he thought I had the best job in Fleet Street. And I wouldn’t disagree…….!”

 

The birds were singing so loudly in the background that I though Lucia Montanarella was out in the countryside when I called her last week. She wasn’t though, she was in her apartment in the city of Lausanne, Switzerland where she has been based since being appointed Head of Media Operations by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in January. Like so many others she was working from home that day. 

The new IOC headquarters at Olympic House, described as one of the most sustainable buildings in the world, opened its doors a year ago to mark the 125th anniversary of the organisation that was founded on 24 June 1894 by Pierre Coubertin. Previously the 500 staff were spread across four different locations in Lausanne, but the new building has brought them all together under one roof. However only 30% of the staff are permitted to gather in the office on any given day at the moment due to pandemic restrictions. 

I have called Lucia to talk about the career that has taken her from her early years in the world of equestrian sport to the very top of her chosen profession. I begin by asking how she is finding Swiss life? “For someone like me who enjoyed living in Brazil and comes from messy Rome it’s a big change. I’m the sort of person who gets intimidated when everything works, so I don’t fully enjoy all of this perfection all around me, although the lifestyle is brilliant!”, she says with a laugh. “Switzerland came out as the number one country through this pandemic and the reality is we’ve been very privileged, we’ve never been contained”, she explains. 

We reflect on the fact that her daughter, Agnese, is now a teenager and that her son, Pietro, was only a four-week-old baby when we both worked at the FEI European Eventing Championships at Burghley (GBR) in 1997 where she was Press Officer. He has just graduated from his Masters in Management at the London School of Economics this summer. The years pass so very quickly…..

Equestrian credentials

Lucia’s equestrian credentials go all the way back to her childhood on the family farm in the north of Rome. Her parents, who first met at the Socieda Hippica Romana, a riding centre near the Olympic Stadium in the heart of the city, bought a property close to the farm owned by the family of Italy’s most famous equestrian press manager, Caterina Vagnozzi of Equi Equipe, and that would prove pivotal in many ways.

Lucia’s father bred horses, and she rode the young ones and competed in Eventing at Junior and Young Rider level. “When I was at University, Caterina invited me to help her in her office. I was just 17 and it really all started from there. I always had a passion for writing, I was obsessed with it from when I was very little. When other children were playing with dolls I was asking for a typewriter”, she says.

She went on to write for a number of equestrian publications along with Rome’s daily newspaper, “Il Tempo”, and also did some radio reporting. “Being an equestrian journalist is a tough job and it was a tough job in those days as well”, she recalls. That led to a position with the Italian Equestrian Federation (FISE) which in turn led to her being appointed Press Officer for a number of events. 

“I was Press Officer in Pratoni for the World Equestrian Games (the third WEG, staged in Rome in 1998) and then for a few of the Italian legs of the FEI Jumping World Cup including Verona, and the Final of the World Cup series in Milan. I was also hired by Simon Brooks-Ward for a few years, so I worked at Olympia and Royal Windsor and Burghley and some shows in Spain including Oviedo and Seville”, she says. 

Olympic link

Her link with the Olympic Games began when the FEI recommended her as Equestrian Press Manager to SOCOG, the Organising Committee for the Sydney 2000 summer Olympic Games. “I moved to Sydney for a few months with Pietro who was only three at the time, and when I came back I was hired as Director of Communications for the WEG in Jerez (ESP in 2002). Then, a bit out of the blue, in January 2003 I was contacted by the Organising Committee of the Torino Games (Winter Olympics 2006),” she explains.

She laughs now when she recalls her first telephone call in response to the approach from Torino. “I said I didn’t like winter sport, I wasn’t a Juventus fan, I didn’t want to move to Torino and that I was wasn’t really interested! But still they called me back and at the same time my partner Flaminio, who is now my husband, was living in the North of Italy so it was a way for me to be closer to where he lives. So in the end I went for the interview and I was hired!”, she says. 

Looking back, Lucia believes she owes a great deal to the experience gained during her time in various roles in the world of equestrian sport. “Torino was a big jump into a different environment, but no matter what area of sport you work in the job is much the same. Whether it’s grabbing someone at Badminton and bringing them to the press conference or doing the same thing at the Olympic Games, there is one goal - to make sure the media gets the stories. The good practices of media services in equestrian sport taught me a lot”.

Made history

She made history at the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010 when appointed the first-ever female Press Chief in the 114-year history of the Olympic Games, and the first-ever “foreigner” to take up that position. She found herself in a dilemma however, because the day after she was offered the job she discovered she was pregnant with her daughter. She offered to step back in the circumstances but VANOG didn’t blink, encouraging her to travel to Vancouver and take it from there. It was a really big move further up that Olympic ladder. 

She says that making that piece of history made her very proud, but that she was “scared to death about the job and then I didn’t know how I was going to manage with this baby that would be born - but it all worked out well!”

Clearly Lucia’s determination to make things work, under any circumstances, is pretty unique. “I was hired by a woman, and her boss was totally against me. He said oh, she (Lucia) will never come back from Italy after she has the baby and she will let you down, but somehow she managed to keep me there”.

While she was in Vancouver, Lucia was contacted by the Bid Committee for the Rio Games to consult with them on the bid for the media services, which she did. When they won the bid in 2009 Lucia found herself in a funny situation. “Chicago was also going for the Games and everyone in Vancouver wanted the US to win because it would be a good transition from Canada to the US. So the morning of the announcement I was the only one supporting Rio. And I remember at 10 o’cock in the morning I had to hide with my friend Cassie under the desk to celebrate, because I was the only one who was happy that Rio got it!”

When she returned from Vancouver, she became a consultant in Media Operations for the IOC and a mentor for the Young Reporters Programme. “Then I did the London (2012) Games, and just beforehand Rio 2016 offered me the same job I had in Vancouver as Head of Press Operations and we moved to Rio (BRA) with the kids in January 2013 and stayed there until December 2016”, she says.

Upheaval

I’m staggered that anyone can cope with such constant upheaval in their lives. “You just have to take it one day at a time!”, Lucia says. “If you look at it then it’s a huge thing, but if you don’t look at it and take one day at a time it’s easy. Although as I’m talking to you now it feels like I am talking about someone else, I can hardly believe I’ve done all this, but I have!”

While she was in Rio, the IOC decided to turn the Olympic News Service into the Olympic Information Service (OIS) and Lucia was appointed Editor in Chief of the new service which successfully operated during the PyeongChang Winter Games in 2018. “Then my predecessor, Anthony Edgar, decided he wanted to retire to Australia and I was offered the position of Head of Media at the IOC starting in January 2020”, Lucia explains.

Tokyo

So what about Tokyo 2020? “I have a big calendar in my kitchen showing all the travel for this year including Tokyo, and now it’s all erased! I don’t want to sound cynical about what has been happening around the world and still is - it’s such a tragedy. But it’s super-interesting to work on the re-planning of the Games because it’s a one-off, and it gives us the opportunity to really look in depth at prioritising what is really needed”, she points out. 

"I can picture a lot of tears at the Olympic ceremony in Tokyo, because the opening of those Games will have such a strong meaning for all of us."

Lucia Montanarella 

But with so much uncertainty can the Games really go ahead? “I can tell you from the inside that we are really working with our heads down, looking at all kinds of different ideas, like what if we have to limit the number of people in the Mixed Zone, how to manage access, what if you have to take out every other seat in the tribune, everything has an impact. It’s a huge piece of work as you can imagine, and also re-confirming and re-negotiating because all the contracts are gone out the window”. It is indeed a mind-boggling scenario, but apparently most media are sticking with the prospect of travelling in 2021 when the Games are scheduled to run from 23 July to 8 August, and the Paralympic Games from 25 August to 5 September.

“We’ve been conducting a few surveys and nobody is saying that they will cut numbers. However there will be only five months between the Closing Ceremony in Tokyo and the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, so we feel Beijing may be more affected from a media perspective. We are looking at introducing some tools that could help remote reporting, such as following press conferences online, but we are not yet convinced that we will have to introduce it for Tokyo. In the survey we conducted about offices in the Main Press Centre all of the companies that booked an office said they still want it” she points out.

Looking back

Looking back, Lucia says “all my career has been life deciding for me rather than me deciding my life!”, but it’s been a very successful formula for her. Despite her absence from it for quite some time she has managed to maintain many of her contacts in the horse world, and she treasures that. 

“Equestrian sport was the perfect springboard for me because it gave me confidence and great experience. When I’m at the Games I make sure to catch up with everyone I can. The equestrian part of my life was, and always will be, very important to me”, she concludes. 

When I called David Broome last Tuesday he had been haymaking at Mount Ballan Manor near Chepstow in South Wales which, apart from being the family farm, is also home to the hugely popular Wales and West showgrounds. 

The legendary British showjumping rider is deeply rooted in his home place. His parents, Fred and Millie, moved to Mount Ballan in 1947, and all four of their children - David, Liz, Mary and Frederick - had a passion for horses from an early age. David’s grandfather worked for a veterinary surgeon in Pembroke (Wales) and his father, Fred, was an experienced horseman and a well-known pony dealer. David recalls his introduction to the saddle and his first, very early, retirement.

“Father had me riding when I was about two years old, using a harness out of a pram with a buckle in front, a buckle behind and buckles on both sides. As time went on the buckles were removed and I became number one jockey when he was breaking Welsh Mountain ponies, but I got bucked off so often that I retired from the sport when I was five!”

However two years later everything changed with the arrival of a pony called Beauty. “I took a fancy to her so I started again, and my career kind of went from there!”, he says.  

Ponies

Fred was always on the lookout for talented ponies for his children. “The ones we kept were good, like Ballan Lad who had a run of 28 clears. Every one of them cost 60 quid (GB Pounds) and I had a great career in 14.2s. There were about five shows in which I jumped three clear rounds on all three ponies in the same class. We only had one saddle, so I could have a little breather while the saddle was being changed over!”

David told his teachers at Monmouth Grammar School that he wanted to be a veterinary surgeon, but it wasn’t true. Working on the farm and riding horses was what really appealed to him but he knew they wouldn’t approve of that. “I left school when I was 17 and the horses were there and one thing seemed to follow another,” he says.

“My first year in seniors I had a couple of horses my father used to ride. And then we bought one called Wildfire from the Monmouthshire Hunt that was next door to us - also for £60. He was stopping (refusing at fences) but he had competed Eventing. We straightened him out and he was a hunter hireling in the winter and then we started jumping the following spring. I’ll always remember our first show at Glanusk, there was a triple bar away from the collecting ring and we got eliminated. If ever there was a fence to test a stopper that was it. So my father said, ‘that fellow has just one more chance’. We went to Stowell Park the following week and on the second day he won three classes out of three!”

I’m loving how this man still treasures these early achievements in a career that was nothing less than glorious.

Wildfire

I ask him to describe Wildfire. “A 16.1hh bay gelding with a swishy tail, ears pinned back and a sour look, but he and I had a great relationship and he busted a gut for me”, David says. A rule-change worked to the advantage of the partnership because when time was introduced into the sport then Wildfire really came into his own. 

“It used to be that three clear rounds decided the result, but when we started jumping against the clock I was made up. Wildfire was really sharp, a thoroughbred with plenty of speed and a beautiful bouncy canter you could adjust. Against the clock he was just heaven! He put me on the road, he was Leading Horse in Britain in 1959, and then he got me on the Olympic team until Sunsalve came along”, David explains.

His ability to get along with tricky horses is well-documented, and when I ask David about that he says he owed a lot to the experience he gained during his pony-riding years. “I had three ponies and they all went entirely differently. One galloped on and scotched up (shortened) when he got to a fence, he just couldn’t do a one-striding double in one stride so he always took two so I always had to milk my way through a combination. The second one was a very old-fashioned one, you set him up and you had three strides to get your bumph (distance) to it, and the third was a short-tailed cob called Chocolate who just went on an even keel the whole way around. I was so lucky because it trained me to ride three different ways”, he points out.

Big names

So who were the big names in showjumping when David was moving up the ladder in his career? “Pat Smythe, Harry Llewellyn and Alan Oliver, and then I eventually ran up against Harvey (Smith) when I was 19.”

The tough Yorkshireman Harvey would become one of the most popular and colourful characters in the sport in years to come and the perfect foil to the quiet but determined Welshman. So how was it when they first met at a show in Northampton? “I felt total respect really, he was self-made, hardworking and we became great friends outside the arena. But inside it was bloody hellfire!”

What was their rivalry like? “He made me better, and hopefully I made him better as well. With a lot of good sportsmen you need two of them in the game at the same time so they push each other. 

"He was one of best losers I ever came across because if he was having a bad time then five minutes after he left the ring he was absolutely normal again. But when he was a winner it was a very different story because he was the biggest pain you’ve ever come across - he’d say we were all useless and that none of the rest of us could ride!"

David Broome (GBR) talking about his great friend, rival and compatriot Harvey Smith

David says with big laugh.

It was a twist of fate that saw Wildfire being replaced by Sunsalve for the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome. “We had one of our Olympic training sessions at Ninian Park Football Club in Cardiff and Pat Smythe had just been given the ride on Sunsalve. She won the class and I think I was second, and on the way home my father said ‘Pat won today, but that horse will never go for her again’. It was a strange thing to say after someone has won, but he was a real horseman and he’d seen something and he was right. From there we went on a European tour to Wiesbaden (GER) and Lucerne (SUI), and Sunsalve never did go again for Pat.  

Sent it back

“So the Olympic Committee said the horse was useless and sent it back to the owner, Mr Anderson in Norfolk. As it happened, in our pony trade we had a lady in Newmarket called Ann Hammond - we sold her 465 ponies over the years. And when we were at her place a couple of weeks later my father asked if she knew Mr Anderson and she said she did. She agreed to introduce us, we borrowed her car and set off for his little farm and father and he got on like a house on fire! Mr Anderson had bred the horse and his daughter had ridden it and won the Queen’s Cup with it. In ten minutes, over a cup of tea, he had given Sunsalve to us”, David explains.

It wouldn’t be all plain sailing to begin with. “Ten days later we went to a show and he went well, but at the next event I took both Sunsalve and a little horse called Discutido and they were both eliminated in a £20 class! So my father asked if the organisers would leave the jumps up after the Musical Chairs (a novelty class always staged at the end of horse shows in those days) and we schooled both of them afterwards.

“Four days later Sunsalve won the King's Cup (King George V Gold Cup) at the White City, the following week Discutido won the National Championship and the next week I won the Grand Prix in Dublin with Sunsalve”, David recalls.   
 
That was followed by the Olympics in Rome where the individual competition was staged at the beautiful Piazza di Siena where David and Sunsalve clinched individual bronze while host-country heroes Raimondo and Piero d’Inzeo took gold and silver.

Team final

The team final took place at the Olympic Stadium a few days later, and Great Britain was among eight countries to be eliminated while Germany, USA and Italy topped the podium.

David remembers that day well because he learned something he’d never forget. “When I jumped the first round in the morning there were about 8,000 spectators but when we came back for the second round in the afternoon there were about 120,000 and I couldn’t believe it! When the bell went I cantered down to the first fence and missed it (got the stride on approach wrong) because I was all nerves. But luckily the horse got me out of it and I pulled myself together and he went clear after that. I decided that day that nerves don’t do you any good, and apart from getting a few butterflies an hour before the King's Cup or something like that nerves never affected me again. I decided when you go in the ring the only thing you have to worry about is how your horse is going, nothing else will help you, the occasion has nothing to do with it. That stood with me for the rest of my career”, he says.

The King's Cup, the Grand Prix trophy in Dublin and the Olympic bronze medal in Rome were already in the bag when David and Sunsalve headed for the World Championships in Venice (Italy) where they also claimed individual bronze. 

“I was so lucky to have Sunsalve when I had him, I was just 20 at the time and when I rode him I let him gallop on and the horse thought he was doing it his way. If I’d had him later in my life I would have tried to change him and he probably wouldn’t have been a tenth of the horse that he turned out to be. I’ve ridden a lot of horses, but he was THE Olympic horse. He jumped like a deer, his jump was unbelievable”, says the Welshman.

Sports Personality

There’s a wonderful YouTube clip of David being presented with the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award for his 1960 achievements in which, clearly to David’s astonishment, Sunsalve is brought into the studio and he is legged up onto the horse in front of the equally astonished audience. Showjumping was prime-time viewing in Britain at the time, and this award gave the sport an even bigger boost.

David’s CV is beyond staggering. He claimed individual bronze again at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico riding Mister Softee and World Championships individual gold with Beethoven in 1970 as well as team gold with Philco in 1978. His European Championship record includes a double of golds with Mister Softee in 1967 and 1969, team silver with Philco in 1977, team gold in 1979 riding Queensway Big Q and team silvers again in 1983 and 1991 riding Mr Ross and Lannegan. 

And then there is the coveted King George V Gold Cup which he scooped six times on six different horses. “In the ‘50s and ‘60s it was the ultimate class to win, and it’s such a beautiful trophy”, David says. The first time he won it with Sunsalve he kept it for six months on a shelf just inside the front door of his house. But as the years went by it became near-priceless so by the time he claimed it for the final time in 1991 he handed it over to his patron, Lord Harris, “because his security was a bit better than mine!”, David says.

Then and now

I ask David to compare the sport back then to the way it is now. “Jumps are nowhere near as big nowadays. We had one oxer in Mexico, the front pole was about 5ft 4ins (1.64m), it was a 6ft 6ins (2.1m) spread, and the back pole was 5ft 8ins (1.76). Only two horses jumped it in the whole of the Games, I’ve never seen a fence like it before or since! When Olaf Petersen came along he changed the sport so it became more technical, and that saved it in a lot of ways. The only thing is we’ve now gone away from testing horse’s bravery and I think something needs to be done about that. In showjumping the narrowest fence is 8 feet (2.43m) wide, but in eventing it’s four feet (1.2m) so why not have some narrow fences and test rider’s control of their horse”, he suggests. 

David was hugely influential in the establishment of the FEI Jumping World Cup™ series. “I won the Grand Prix in ’s-Hertogenbosch (NED) - there were only six or eight indoor shows in those days -  and I thought we need to have a final for all these indoor shows.

“We had formed the International Jumping Riders Club around that time and Prince Philip was President of the FEI and thought it was a great idea. He invited us to send two representatives every year to the Bureau Meeting at the General Assembly to air views and make suggestions which was a great breakthrough, so I went along with Eric Wauters. I spoke to Paul Schockemohle and he said I know a man that will sponsor the series, Mr Gyllenhammar from Volvo, and then Max Ammann jumped on the bandwagon and took it over and that’s how it all started”, he says. 

Favourites
 
Asked to name some of his favourite venues and events, David replies, “I always love the day of the Aga Khan Cup (Nations Cups) in Dublin, Rome just because of where it is, Olympia (London) because it’s probably the best indoor show but Aachen these days is the number one venue in the world. If they had the World Championships there every year I don’t think anyone would complain!” he answers.

Who were the opponents he most admired during his career? “Well Harvey because he was always the man to try to beat because he never gave up. Alwin Schockemohle because he was the ultimate professional. He would be second-last to go in the jump-off and go into the lead but when he came out of the ring he’d give his horse two or three minutes settle-down work while the last horse was jumping. Everyone else would be jumping off their horse to watch the last one go and hope they didn’t beat you. But not Alwin, he’d quietly school his horse ready for tomorrow. He was a real horseman. His technique for having horses leg-to-hand, having them supple, well mannered - he was superb. I always admired him and he is the loveliest man. 

“And Rodney Jenkins, I watched him warm up Idle Dice at Madison Square Gardens in New York and he trotted down to a 5ft 6ins rail and the horse just popped it. The Americans' position in the saddle was always fantastic. We started off in our careers doing acrobatics, but the Americans were always perfectly balanced. Bill Steinkraus - his legs never moved, and you only get that style if you have the horse going correctly”, he points out.  

Proudest moment

David’s proudest moment comes as a bit of a surprise, “when I won the Foxhunter (Novice Championship) with Top of the Morning jumping the only the clear round at Wembley”, he says. And what’s his advice to competitors in the sport today? “Remember that you don’t necessarily win more the more often you jump”. 

In recent years David’s attention has turned to the Wales and West showground at Mount Ballan Manor which hosts many events throughout the year including a hugely popular Home Pony International. “It has been the second part of my life”, he says. “My father wanted to build the Welsh version of Hickstead so he started about five years after Hickstead was created and I like to think we’ve been successful. We run a happy show, it’s now organised by my sons James and Matthew and they do a great job and I’m proud of them”. 

Reflecting on his sparkling career David concludes, “I was a farmer’s son and horses have taken me around the world. I’ve been lucky in so many different ways, I was very lucky to meet Lord Harris who supported me from when I was 30 onwards and I’ve had some wonderful horses and some great sporting days. For all that I can only be eternally grateful.”

On his debut as a roving reporter, Shetland social media influencer Beachboy Jasper visits Carl Hester’s yard in Gloucestershire, England where he gets the lowdown on some of the inmates. His timing isn’t perfect because the big names have just gone hacking in the morning sunshine. But Bella the Broodmare is at home, and she’s more than pleased to show him around and spill the beans about some of the most popular personalities in the sport of Dressage.....

“Don’t worry about the dogs”, says Bella as I’m surrounded by at least a dozen of them jumping and barking with excitement. I’m not bothered because when you’re handsome, debonair and sophisticated then being the centre of attention is all in a days' work. But I get a bit of a fright when a flock of ferocious two-legged things come thundering towards me, led by a colossal beast with its tail-feathers fanned out and shrieking at the top of its head. 

“Don’t worry about that lot either - it’s just peacocks and chickens and ducks and guinea fowl. There are so many attention-seekers around this place - it’s mad to be honest!”, Bella says with a giggle.

I compose myself as best I can while keeping a beady eye on the peacock that seems to be stalking me, and ask what life has been like over the last few months while most of us ponies and horses have had nowhere to go with competitions called off because of the people-virus? “Well Carlos Santana has been fussing about managing the finances and running the yard - all that ‘I’ve got staff and I’m responsible for so many people’ stuff y’know? But I reckon he’s enjoyed every minute of it. Anyway he’s back teaching again this week so that’s keeping him quiet”, she explains. 

It’s a lovely yard, and I peek over the door of the stable normally occupied by Valegro who, I’m told, is nearly as good a mover as myself. He’s won a few shiny things and people make a lot of fuss of him. At home he’s called Blueberry, so what is he like?

“A gentleman to his tippy-toes”, she says. “He never made a fuss about all the big wins he had, never bowed to the pressure or changed his personality, he’s always stayed humble, always helpful and extremely happy to see everybody. He loves a good cuddle, especially from children. But boy, (I knew there had to be a weak spot) does he like his grub!” 

I’m admiring him even more now, sounds like my kind of chap. “Even the year he went to the Olympic Games in London (2012) and won double-gold he couldn’t control his appetite." 

"You’ve never seen anything like it, there’s nothing he doesn’t eat. He goes on and on about his diet and controlling his waistline, but he just can’t seem to stop himself!"

Bella can’t seem to stop herself either, now that she's on a roll she wants to dish all the dirt. “Y’know there are days when this nice lady called Tricia Gardiner comes to hack him out and the pair of them are gone for hours. Not because he’s doing any real work. No, it’s just that she’s not strong enough to hold him when he drags her into every hedgerow along the way so he can nibble the nice pickings. He comes back munching bits of twigs and sticks and branches and looking very pleased with himself every time, he’s unreal!” 

Not what I was expecting to hear about the horse who has set more world records than most of us have had bran mashes, but you can tell that Bella really admires him. “Charlotte (Dujardin) rode him beautifully, and I think he was always grateful that Carl was there to help her handle the pressure at the big events. He achieved so much, and we’re all very proud of him here - Blueberry is a prince!”, she insists. 

However she doesn’t feel quite the same about Mount St John Freestyle, the mare, also ridden by Charlotte, who brought home two medals from the FEI World Equestrian Games™ (WEG) 2018 in Tryon, USA and who won the FEI Dressage World Cup™ qualifier at London Olympia (GBR) last season. 

“Now there’s a bossy one”, says Bella with a bit of a growl. “She’s a right prima donna, it’s all about her, she wants everything and she wants it ‘now!’. She wants to be fed before everyone else, she wants to come in from the field when she wants to come in - not two minutes later, she only wants to go out if it’s nice and sunny because she doesn’t want to get wet or have a hair out of place even if it’s only slightly windy or rainy. She’s a bit annoying if you ask me…”

“At least now she’s learned that she does actually have to do a days work. And ok she’s good at it, but she’s been building up a bit of a fan-club and that’s just making her fancy herself even more. She’s a right one, I’m telling you!” 

So I move on to ask about Nip Tuck who I’ve heard is a bit of a character. “We call him Barney and, to be honest, he’s a head-case but a very sweet one. He’s part of the gang that go out in the field at night-time. There are 18 horses here and only eight live out at night….the ‘normal’ ones go out during the day and the daft ones at night so they can run the Grand National if they like, but at least they have their brains in their heads when it comes to working the following morning.”

It seems Bella has a big soft spot for Barney. “He’s hysterical, he’s tipped Carl off a good few times because he’s scared of his own shadow. He’s a big fellow and should be brave as a lion but instead he’s really spooky and scared of a mouse! I remember him telling me how he fell on Carl when he got a huge fright because a waiter dropped a tray as he was passing by at a show (at Aachen, Germany European Championships in 2015), but sure he’s done that here at home too. They were going out the gate at the end of the avenue one day and something scared him and he went into reverse and knocked down the gate-pillars - mad stuff! And Carl came home from the Olympics in Rio (2016) with whiplash because he spun around during a test for no real reason at all - Barney couldn’t even explain it himself afterwards!”

But he took team silver at those Europeans in Aachen, and again at the WEG in Caen in 2014 and in Rio in 2016, so how did Barney manage to do all that if he’s such a scaredy-cat? “I think it’s because there were no big expectations of him. Carl used to say ‘Barney will never do this, he’ll never do that, he’ll never be a championship horse, he’ll never do a Grand Prix, he’ll never get around that ring in Olympia'. But he did all of those things because he tried really hard. He even won at Olympia which he says is the scariest arena in the world because the spectators are almost sitting on top of you. And he did it not once, but twice. In the end I reckon he did it all because he really enjoyed proving Carl wrong!”, Bella says.

All this talk about working so hard is a bit exhausting. I ask the mare if it's been boring having to #stayhome and not do very much over the last few months? “No, quite the opposite, we all had a really nice time, lots of freedom, lovely grass, sunny weather, sunbathing all day - it’s been dreamy actually”, she explains. So how is everyone feeling about getting back to work now that things are slowly starting again?

“Well we’ve got two completely different attitudes here. Charlotte is preparing like the Olympic Games might suddenly and miraculously come back to life this year even though we know they won’t be happening until next summer. She’s off to Hickstead in a few weeks for something called the Rotterdam Hickstead online challenge and she can’t wait.

“But Carl? Well he has no intention of putting himself under pressure until he absolutely has to…..Charlotte doesn’t call him ‘Grandad’ for nothing you know….”

An interview with James Cunningham Wofford is not something to be taken lightly. Any attempt at leading the conversation fails miserably, because you are talking with a man with the most exceptional communications skills and extraordinary stories to tell. There’s a sense of riding the tide of equestrian history as the double-Olympian and world-famous American coach recalls sporting highlights, great horses and magical moments from his stellar career.

But it’s a bit like sitting on a runaway train, and even when you get to the end it feels like you’ve only half-halted. Because you just know that there are many more tales to be told and lots more wisdom to be shared by this raconteur par excellence..…

I begin by asking him if he always had Olympic ambitions, and he admits it was “in my cross-hairs from a very early age”. Not surprising really considering his father, Col John W. Wofford who later became first President of the United States Equestrian Team (USET), competed in Jumping at the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles (USA) and his older brother, Jeb, helped claim bronze for Team USA in Eventing at the Helsinki (FIN) Games in 1952. Another brother, Warren, went to the top of the sport in both Jumping and Eventing and was reserve for the US Eventing team at the Olympic Games in Stockholm (SWE) in 1956. That’s quite some pedigree just there. 

When Jim was growing up, Jeb and his Helsinki team-mates Champ Hough - father of American Jumping star Lauren Hough - and Wally Staley were his childhood heroes. “Then along came Mike Plumb and Michael Page - I looked up to them for years so when I joined them on the US team that was a real thrill!”, Jim says.

Did he ever have any doubts about his ability to make it to the top in sport? “I had terrific doubts, and at first I didn’t have a suitable horse, I was riding around on a 15.3hh roan Appaloosa. However Warren lived in England, and in spring 1967 he went to Ireland looking for horses and saw Kilkenny who was for sale because he’d been to the Olympics, the World Championships and Badminton and they reckoned he was pretty much done.

Kilkenny

“Warren called my mother and said what a cool schoolmaster the horse would be, so they sent him to me and suddenly I was the hottest kid on the block! We had an unusual partnership, we really shot to the top, from him being thought to be over the hill with all his mileage and me having never been anywhere of any repute - they put us together and it just worked. So we won the National Championships at my first try, and now I’m standing on the podium with Mike Page and Mike Plumb!” 

Kilkenny had previously been ridden by Irishman Tommy Brennan who, following a stellar Jumping and Eventing career, became a world-renowned horse agent and cross-country course designer. Did Jim have a preference for what discipline he would compete in with the horse? “I was intrigued by showjumping, but I was a moth to a flame when it came to Eventing!”, he says.

Kilkenny had already enjoyed a successful career in both disciplines. “In late summer ’64 he went to Tokyo (Olympic Games where he finished individually 16th in Eventing), in ’65 he went showjumping with Tommy, and in ’66 he was back on the Irish gold medal Eventing team at the World Championships in Burghley”, Jim explains. 

I ask him to describe Kilkenny. 

"He was a 17hh dark bay gelding by Water Serpent with a mealy nose, a tiny star on his forehead and the look of eagles. When he trotted by you in hand he had all four feet off the ground!"

He had seen every sort of situation which was handy for me because I’d seen none of them. So I could just drop my hands and tell him to get on with the job which he was happy to do!” 

That US National Championships victory was in 1967, and the following year they competed at Badminton (GBR) in preparation for, arguably, the most memorable Eventing Olympic Games of all-time in Mexico in 1968.

In the heyday of the “classic format”, the toughness and versatility of horse and rider were fully tested. Dressage was followed by Speed and Endurance day which consisted of two sessions of Roads and Tracks interspersed by a steeplechase phase, and then a vet check before heading out on the cross-country course. The final day’s showjumping decided the result.

Mexico

Talking about selection for Mexico, Jim says “Plumb and Page would never be left off the team if their horse was sound, and Kevin Freeman was such a marvellous horseman, maybe the best rider of all of us. So there was really one slot left, and fortunately I filled that.” However the Americans were steeped in good fortune when drawn early to go on Speed and Endurance day, because an afternoon deluge created monstrous conditions that nearly claimed the life of Kilkenny’s former rider.

“I went early and was first out of the box for us. We were on top of the ground so I had the fastest round of the day and I think Michael may have had the second-fastest. When you look back at the scores it’s two different competitions, but it could all have been completed in sunshine!”, Jim recalls.

Despite knowing that a monsoon would descend around 13.00 hours as it did every day, the start-time was not adjusted and those that set out later in the competition met with a nightmare. “Once the heavy rain began the volcanic soil became a morass immediately. It was a golf course, there was a shell of grass over this powdery substance that turned to soup under wet conditions and we got the biggest monsoon of the five weeks we were up there!”, Jim explains.

Tommy Brennan was only called into action at the last minute with the reserve Irish horse, March Hawk. Second-last to go, he faced inches of water on the steeplechase track where he took a fall on the flat, and by the time he headed out cross-country a stream that had to be crossed several times had become a dangerous flood in full spate. Only the top few inches of Fence 5 were visible and Fence 6 was almost fully submerged. Horse and rider were swept away and disappeared underwater, both in danger of drowning. But somehow they struggled ashore and continued a little further before March Hawk decided he’d had more than enough.

Great Britain claimed team gold, USA silver and West Germany bronze. Jim’s compatriot Michael Page (Foster) took individual bronze and Jim and Kilkenny slotted into sixth place. 

Punchestown

The World Championship in Punchestown (IRL) two years later was another dramatic affair, but Kilkenny’s class saw Jim take individual bronze this time around.

Once again there was controversy on cross-country day with a big number of fallers late on the track. “The Irish knew they had to lead with their strength and that was the quality of their horses, so they designed a course that was maximum in every aspect - distance, speed, dimension of obstacles, number of obstacles. This was always going to be a big test, and that suited me because I had a horse purpose-built for it!”, he points out. 

“But no-one knew there was a bogey fence at the 29th. You came through the woods above the old sheep tank and you galloped on a trail and then there was a guard rail and the ground fell away precipitously, and six feet out there was an oxer rail stuffed with gorse. You were supposed to gallop and jump out over the oxer and take a 6ft 6ins drop - it’s what Americans call a ‘gut-check’, a test of courage, scope and balance. But what the course designer didn’t take into account was a few fences before that there was a double-bank, and it rehearsed the horses to step on the gorse which they did again and again. As they built up the brush every time they kept stuffing the fence with more green branches so it was even more inviting for the horses to step on it. 

“Something like 27 horses got that far and 24 of them fell including Kilkenny, and including Richard Meade (GBR) who got the silver medal. But Mary Gordon-Watson’s (GBR who took individual gold) horse jumped it neat as a pin. Nowadays if there were two falls like that the jump would be removed from the course and adjustments made in the scores. But in 1968 this was still a sport run by cavalry generals!”, Jim says.

Munich

The Olympic Games in Munich in 1972 brought his partnership with this faithful steed to an end. The US side that also included Mike Plumb with Free and Easy, Kevin Freeman riding Good Mixture and Bruce Davidson with Plain Sailing claimed team silver, but for Jim and Kilkenny it wasn’t their finest hour.

“I rode according to orders instead of the way I should have, and we finished well down the list. But he didn’t get the ride he needed so that’s nothing to say about him. At our silver medal victory bash I said that Kilkenny would retire now and come home. He was property of my mother, but my brother (Warren) who was a Master of Foxhounds in England was dropping heavy hints about what a wonderful Fieldmaster’s horse he would be, so I had to have a little palace revolution there to make sure he did come home!” 

Kilkenny’s cross-country days were still not quite over however because he hunted another few seasons with Jim and his wife Gail back in the US even though he wasn’t the ideal candidate because he was a bit over-keen. “He couldn’t bear to have another horse in front of him, and Gail was too brave with him!”, Jim points out.

There was a lean period after Munich. “I was ‘on the bench’ and I knew part of it was because I’d ridden badly in Munich, but also because I didn’t have a horse of Olympic capability”, he says. 

Carawich

All that would change however when he met Carawich. Jim insists he doesn’t believe in anthropomorphism - attributing human traits and emotions to non-humans - but then tells the story of how they first met….

He hadn’t won a competition above Preliminary level since 1972 when, at Badminton in the Spring of 1977, he experienced a moment of connection during the vet-check when a horse stopped and turned to look at him. “The hair stood up on the back of my neck - he picked me out of the crowd and stared at me. His groom tugged on the lead but he didn’t listen - it took about 30 seconds but it seemed like an hour!”, Jim recalls, with excitement still in his voice after all these years. 

The horse wasn’t for sale at the time but came on the market a few months later. “He arrived in late December 1977 untried. I took out a loan on my life insurance policy to pay for him and it was the best investment I ever made!”, says Jim.

“Carawich suited me as the rider I was after two Olympics and one World Championship. We went to Lexington World Championships (Kentucky, USA) in ’78 where we finished 10th and were on the bronze medal team, and then we were fifth at Badminton the following spring and then second at the alternate Olympics in Fontainebleau (FRA) in 1980. We were second in the Kentucky event that spring and won Kentucky the following year. He was quite some horse too!”

More great horses

An injury sustained at Luhmuehlen (GER) in 1981 put an end to Carawich’s career, but Jim still had more great horses to ride. There was Castlewellan who came his way when British rider Judy Bradwell, in recovery following a nasty accident, asked him if he knew of a suitable new US owner for the horse. 

“I said don’t go away, and in about 30 minutes we had a deal! He came over that summer, again untried, and we won a big Intermediate event. Then in Spring ’84 we were well-placed at Kentucky and then we were non-riding reserves at the LA Olympic Games”.

Jim retired after that, but two years later came out of retirement for one more moment of glory. Offered the ride on The Optimist, normally competed by America’s Karen Lende (now O’Connor) who was riding in Australia that year, he jumped at the chance.  

“He was a big bull of a horse, Irish-bred, 16.3hh and a bit big-eared and small-eyed, with massive shoulders like a bullock. He’d run away with everyone who got on him, but he had a wonderful attitude going down to jumps”, Jim recalls. It wouldn’t be all plain sailing, but again a moment of connection would turn everything around.

“For about a week or 10 days I thought I’d painted myself in a corner because we were not getting along at all”, he explains. However he accidentally caught the horse unawares in the stable one day, and The Optimist didn’t have time to put on his normal sullen expression. Instead Jim got a fleeting glimpse of a bright, intelligent, focused horse. “I laughed and shook my finger at him and said “it’s too late, I saw you!”, Jim says. “I suddenly realised he didn’t want to be told what to do, he already knew his job so the next time I threw my leg over him I did it with that in mind and we got along famously. He won a couple of prep events and then he won Kentucky. And then I quickly retired again!”, Jim says.

Talent

Asked to compare the talent of riders from his own era with those of today he replies, “this stuff about ‘Oh we were better in the good old days’ - don’t you believe it! I lived through the good old days - these people today would beat us like a carpet!”, he insists. There have been many changes in the sport of course. “Riders are in a much more predictable situation these days. When they are pacing distances between cross-country obstacles you know it’s a different sport.” 

And the horses - are there big differences in them too? “In the classic format they had to be brave as a lion because we jumped some formidable stuff. We don’t test now for strength of character in the horse - today it’s a test of technique”, he points out.

For many years now he’s been a dedicated and hugely successful coach, and he enjoys training pupils at all levels. He’s looking forward to getting back to working with his students again very soon and seeing how “profitably” they’ve used this time during the pandemic shutdown. “Will they have improved their horse’s training, or will they have worn them out by endlessly practicing competitive details?”, he wonders.

I ask what advice he has for riders concerned about returning to competition in the shadow of the virus still sweeping across the world, and he replies - “event riders are already bio-mechanically engineered not to be afraid, so don’t be afraid! Know the risks and the safeguards, and go from there.” 

Life, he concludes, is like the wording on a famous painting “The Bullfinch” by English artist, Snaffles - “glorious uncertainty” is what awaits us all on the landing side. And, for James Cunningham Wofford, that’s all part of the thrill of the ride…..

Ingrid Klimke was cooking dinner while we chatted on Saturday evening. No surprises there, the German star is a born multi-tasker, so juggling an interview and an evening meal is a breeze for this lady. 

In the sport of Eventing she has five Olympic Games, four FEI World Equestrian Games™ (WEG) and 10 FEI European Championships under her belt. Her medal collection includes two Olympic team golds and one team silver, two WEG team golds and an individual bronze, and last summer’s double-gold in Luhmuehlen (GER) brought her European Championships tally to six golds along with a silver and a bronze. 

Her prowess as a Dressage rider has been key to many of these successes, and just to prove the point she finished seventh in the FEI Dressage World Cup™ Final in ’s-Hertogenbosch (NED) in 2002. It’s a staggering record but far from complete. As we begin our chat she reminds me that she was selected for the German A squads in both Eventing and Dressage for the postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, “with three horses in the two disciplines, so already a dream has come true! Now I’m very much hoping that they all stay healthy for next year!”, she says.

One of my dreams

So what prompted you to try to qualify in two Olympic disciplines this time around? “I watched Mark Todd (New Zealand superstar) compete in Jumping and Eventing in Barcelona, so it was one of my dreams to do the same some day! My father (the late, great German horseman Reiner Klimke) competed at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome in Eventing and later changed to become a Dressage rider."

Apart from your father who were your heroes when you were growing up? “I really admired Lucinda Green and I read all her wonderful books. She was World and European Champion when she won here at Luhmuehlen (team gold for Great Britain at the World Championships in 1992) - I ran around the course after her that day! She was so brave and horses did everything for her. I really liked the way she talked about her horses and the kindness of her - she was fun and open-hearted and had a lovely personality.

“And Mark Todd has always been a legend - when I was at my first Olympics in Sydney neither myself nor my horse (Sleep Late) had ever done a 4-Star. When I saw the cross-country I thought ‘Oh my God!’ and I followed behind Mark when he was walking the course hoping to learn something from him!” 

Has it been a pressure for you being Reiner Klimke’s daughter? "When I was young people would say when I did well ‘Oh for a Klimke that’s a typical result’ and when I made a mistake they would say ‘a Klimke should be doing better than that’. So I tell my girls (her two daughters Greta and Philippa) don’t worry, you can’t make everything right for other people, but you don’t do it for them you do it for yourself because you love the sport and you love the horse."

Ambitious

Are your daughters ambitious? "The oldest, Greta, is now 18 and will be in Young Riders next year and she’s very ambitious and very determined. The young one is almost 10 and she likes to play with the horses, to ride bareback. She comes into the arena and goes ‘OK I’ve done one round of dressage so now Bye Bye Mam!’ She’s having a lot of fun and she has a lovely pony but I’m not sure what she will do with herself!”

I realise Miss Philippa has inherited some of her mother’s characteristics when I ask my next question….

What do you like best about being around horses? “I’m starting a four-year-old again and a friend said to me why are you starting a four-year-old, let the girls do it! But this is what gives me such fun, to see how they discover the world, how they trust you, connect with you. And the other part I enjoy is the horsemanship, going bareback, riding with a neck-rein (see what I mean?), I feel like I’m playing with my ponies again!” 

Is there anything you don’t like about being around horses? “No, although my father didn’t want me to become a professional rider when I was young. He thought it would change my attitude to the horses because I’d have to sell them. He wanted horses to be my hobby and it took me a while to persuade him that I could find another way, but I did and I love it."

Ingrid created her own business model. “We don’t sell horses but keep them and compete them, and I’m really happy to have very good sponsors and try to take good care of them. Asha (her now nine-year-old star Eventing mare), could have been sold for so much money but her owner said we don’t sell family members!”

Pinot

The horse you liked most? "Pinot, my first horse, a little Trakehner stallion. I did my first Dressage, my first Jumping and my first Eventing with him. I had no idea what I was doing, and on my first cross-country round I was looking around and thinking how wonderful it was so I was nearly two minutes too slow! 

“He was small with so much heart and not much scope but he was a great schoolmaster and because of him I decided I wanted to do all three disciplines."

The horse you liked least? Ingrid hesitates here, she doesn’t really want to be critical of any horse and doesn’t name him but..”there was one horse that wasn’t my favourite but I knew there was something in him that he wasn’t showing me. I said to myself, ‘Ingrid you are a Reitmeister (Riding Master) and you’ve got to be able to ride every horse so look for other ways with him!’ We got there in the end and he taught me a lot about having to be patient, and later he won my heart - but it certainly wasn’t love at first sight!” 
 
The best horse you’ve ever ridden? “The mare Escada, she was in the winning team in the WEG at Caen (in 2014) and she had all the qualities you can imagine. She was a unique jumper, careful, powerful, so much scope with lovely gaits, and she could go forever cross-country. Unfortunately because she was always giving too much we couldn’t keep her sound. She and Hale Bob grew up together and Bobby was always No 2 when she was at her most brilliant."

How did you learn to master three tough disciplines?  Because of the chances my parents gave me, to feel different dressage horses and schoolmasters, and when I was with (Canadian Jumping legend) Ian Millar I had the chance to see the Canadian way of showjumping. And Fritz Ligges (German gold medallist, Munich Olympic Games 1972) was also competing in Eventing and Jumping and was a close friend of my father so when I was growing up I went on holidays and did a lot of jumping there, so I think from youth on I had a good chance to feel wonderful horses in the three disciplines."

Your favourite discipline and why? Eventing cross-country - I’m really competitive when I’m out there. The buzz going into the start-box is what I love the most!

“And in top Dressage when you ride the Freestyle to Music. My father always said try to have invisible aids so the spectators can’t see what you do and the horse seems to be doing it on its own…when you have that, and it’s not too often but when you have it, then I also really like dressage a lot!  

“It depends on the horse too. In my next life I would maybe like to become a Jumping star!" 

Memorable moments

Memorable Cross-Country Moments?  “At Sydney (2000 Olympic Games) the cross-country was so long - 13 minutes and five seconds - with steeplechase and roads and tracks, and it was so hot. I really wasn’t sure I was ready for it. I went at the very end, and so many people before me had falls and it didn’t go well for the German team either. When I came in the 10-minute box I heard someone say ‘I don’t think Ingrid will make it’…. 

“I said to Blue (Sleep Late) we have to do something we’ve never done before and that we’ll never forget, you have to show you are a thoroughbred and run forever! The second water was jumping onto a bank and into a deep drop followed by a brush fence and I was leaning too far forward at the drop. But he just jumped everything totally straight without any attention to me trying to hang on. He galloped the last minute uphill and kept this incredible rhythm and I was in time and I couldn’t believe it! 

“And then there was my last ride with Braxxi (Butts Abraxxas, two-time Olympic team gold medallist) when he was 16. It was at Burghley (2013) and I couldn’t believe how huge the fences were! He gave me his everything - twice on that cross-country round I wondered if I should stop, but when we finished it was so emotional. I said to Braxxi this is our last competition together, you can’t give me any more! He showed more ability than he had, more scope than he had. I hadn’t planned it but I retired him then”.

Where did he retire to? “Greta was 11 at the time and he was a great schoolmaster for her. He’s now 23 and still in my barn. I did send him to a retirement home with other horses but he decided he didn’t want to stay there and kept jumping out. He wanted to be with us, so I took him back and I love it every day when I see him out with the ponies. He’s still in Stable No. 1 which he deserves!”

Philosophy

What’s your philosophy when things go wrong? “Get back on your feet and look for the positive things even though sometimes you don’t see them right away. A good example was me and Braxxi, he was not a good showjumper and all his life I tried everything with him but finally I had to accept that there are some things you cannot change. When I did that then I could appreciate our wonderful dressage and cross-country rounds even though I knew I was never going to win an individual medal because he would never jump clear. But I was always a good team member." 

Was European double-gold in Luhmuehlen last summer particularly special for you? “Yes I was so thrilled for Bobby (Hale Bob) because in Strezegom (POL in 2017) it was a close battle between Michael Jung (German team-mate and multiple champion) and me, and it was very close this time again. Bobby did such a wonderful cross-country round, it felt so easy, I looked at my watch and we were so much ahead of time we could canter home! He did a brilliant showjumping round. In Tryon (WEG 2018) we had the last (showjumping) fence down and lost the medal, but this time we showed we really could do it when the pressure was on.  

"And it’s alway more special when the horse is getting older. Now he is 16 and these are our last years together so I treasure it even more."

Ingrid Klimke (GER) talking about her partnership with SAP Hale Bob OLD

Three mothers

The important people in your life? My family of course, and I have three mothers - (two along with her mother Ruth). There is also Faith Berghuis (Canadian patron of equestrian sport) who supported me with great advice and gave me the chance to work with Ian Millar, and Aunt. She’s not my real aunt but she owns a little farm behind my parents house and I spent a lot of my childhood there learning about animals and farming and nature. 

“After my father died (aged 63 in 1999) his advisor, friend and teacher when he was young, the old cavalryman Paul Stecken, became my mentor and just four years ago he passed away aged 100. He was a lovely man. 

“And my friends, some who have nothing to do with horses who were in my school here in Münster (GER) and we have many things in common. And then there are my ‘culture’ friends who take me out to cultural events so my life is not all about horses!”  
   
What makes you laugh? “Kids, and young horses….the way they see the world can be really funny!”

What makes you cry? "Seeing the refugees sitting in those camps in Greece and nobody willing to take them. When people are poor and born into hopeless situations, that makes me very sad. I’m a member of PLAN International, an organisation that works to improve children’s rights and equality for girls who live in poverty. We have to help as much as we can. 

"And also the animals, when you see the rhinos and other beautiful animals being slaughtered by poachers it makes me so angry - that really makes me cry."

Finally how are you coping with life during this pandemic? “If you listen to the news it’s very easy to lose your positive attitude, because there is so much uncertainty. But I tell myself I’m privileged, I’m healthy and so are my family so we must stay patient. We don’t now when the vaccination will come but until then we must stay optimistic and be thankful for what we have."

He could be forgiven for being down in the dumps right now….his chance of becoming the first-ever four-time FEI Jumping World Cup™ champion blown out of the water and no opportunity to chase down a second individual Olympic gold medal either this year. All sport has ground to a halt and his personal life has also been affected because his wedding to fiancee, Fanny Skalli, which was planned for next month, has also been postponed for the foreseeable future due to the pandemic.

It doesn’t sound like a recipe for a good mood, but the man who has been holding court at the top of the Longines Rankings for 14 of the last 15 months is staying positive. 

Halfway through our interview last Friday (April 17), Swiss star Steve Guerdat put the current situation into perspective with his trademark passion. 

“Nobody talks about the millions of kids around the world who don’t have clean water to drink, and are dying of hunger every single day. We only think about how am I going to get to the shows, how am I going to pay for my Mercedes, how am I going to buy my new car and buy my new truck and buy my new horse. The poor face a crisis every day of their lives. Now we in the rich countries have to face this problem, but there is no reason to be afraid. It’s an experience, and for once it’s the same for everyone. So we have to look forward and maybe think about doing things differently - but there will be a way out of it”, he says.

Heroes

Our Q&A interview began with a simple Who were your heroes when you were a child? Steve doesn’t hesitate in answering…

“Michael Jordan (the world-famous basketball star who made several memorable come-backs during his extraordinary career). I’ve always been a sports fanatic, and his story is an inspiration. Normally a superstar is really good over a short period of time, but with him you were never disappointed (each time he made a come-back). It was like a lesson of life and sport, about not giving up, and as a kid he was someone I was crazy about. 

“As a rider my hero has always been John Whitaker. I like him for much the same reasons. With John everything is easy. I think he doesn’t even know what he’s achieving because he does everything so naturally. Horses respond to him and it’s just natural for him to ride and win in a very natural way with a completely natural attitude. That inspires me as a rider”, Steve explains. 

It takes him a bit longer to reply to the next question though. So what’s it like to be the hero now yourself? There’s a bit of a silence, I can imagine him shifting from foot to foot, he’s clearly not comfortable with this one….

“I really don’t feel like that, I don’t see myself as really good. I trust what I do but I still have so often the feeling that I am so bad at it, so many mistakes, so many things I’d like to do so much better. I’m not even thinking about being a hero, being someone who inspires other riders….”

So I say - “but so many people look at you and say “gosh, if only I could ever be as good as Steve”….but he quickly comes back with “well for sure they can, because I could get so much better!”

Influences

We move on to the person who has influenced you most, and his response is instant…. 

“My dad (Philippe Guerdat). He was never pushing himself forward, always letting me be free to do what I want and that’s why I respect him so much. In the sport he was the most influential person since day one. And of course in recent years Thomas Fuchs has also been an influence on my career”. 

Who is in your support crew? “My longtime grooms Heidi and Emma, my rider Anthony, we have 10 people at home and they are also very important to me. My family, from my parents to my cousins, and I have a close relationship with my owners too. The blacksmith and the vet - there are so many people and they don’t just work with me and support me, they are also my friends. And of course now for a few years I have my girlfriend, who will be my wife soon, so I’m very lucky in the situation I am in - to have so many great people around me”.

Why do you enjoy being around horses? “Because they give so much and they don’t ask for anything back. We try to give them as much back as we can, but they are not asking for it! They are so loyal, and they never cheat on you”. 

What do you like least about horses - all the hard work? This question provokes a tone of outrage…..

"It’s not work! If you think it’s work then you are doing the wrong job! Maybe a groom can say that, but definitely not a professional rider - what we have is an amazing life. It takes a lot of time but it’s very far away from being hard work!!"

Horses 

Which of all the horses you’ve ridden was/is the one you’ve loved the most? Not the slightest hesitation here as his tone becomes much softer…. “Jalisca, because she’s basically the horse that made the biggest step in my career. I don’t want to say she saved me - I was riding, I was healthy but I was in a complete hole in my sporting career when that mare brought me into the spotlight, winning the Cup in Geneva (in December 2010) and giving all the time 200% for me. She was the kindest horse you would ever find. She was always there fighting for me, she was the best horse that has ever been around for me!”, he says.

Is there a horse that you didn’t like at all? “I’d be lying if I said I’ve never been frustrated with a horse. But the truth is as soon as I’d be annoyed I’d be thinking no, it’s you that’s to blame, you made the mistake of having too high hopes for this horse, or you didn’t educate it the right way, or you put too much pressure on it or, or, or….in the end if a horse doesn’t work out it’s only yourself to blame. It could be riding wrong, or buying wrong and having the wrong expectations of the horse who couldn’t do what you would like him to do. It’s not his fault, we are all born with some qualities - there are some things you can do and some things you cannot do so well - but there is only so much any of us can do.”

Is there a horse that you would love to ride? “No, because I already rode the best horse in the history of showjumping, Tepic La Silla! I only rode him for three or four months and I won my first medal in the European Championships in Donaueschingen (GER) in 2003 and a couple of Grand Prix. He was a horse from Alfonso Romo and I would have liked to have him longer, but I feel privileged I could ride him in just a few shows because he was unbelievable. He had absolutely everything. For me he was the very best!”

The horse who gave you his personal-best? Steve laughs as he replies “Nino, and he’s standing right in front of me!” Now 19 years old, the gelding that helped him to individual Olympic glory in London in 2012 is in happy retirement at Steve’s lovely farm at Elgg in Switzerland. “What was so good about him is that when I wanted to be clear I was clear 95% of the time. We also had some bad rounds, but from the time I really figured him out we had very few fences down. I didn’t jump him a lot, but most of the time he was double-clear in Grand Prix”, he says fondly. 

Friendships

Your strongest friendships in the sport? I don’t have many, but the ones I have are very, very close. Alain Jufer, he was on the team in Calgary when we won (first-ever Swiss Nations Cup victory at Spruce Meadows in 2016). We grew up together, and started riding together as kids. Gregory Wathelet, for 15 or 20 years now, same with Daniel Etter and I could mention Eric Lamaze as well. They are my closest friends. I can’t say why, they are all very different people and came into my life at different times, they are good friends and get along together very well but it’s not that they are each best friends with the other - they are just people I know I can rely on, and they know it’s the same the other way around”. 

Cares and worries? “My biggest worry right now is I employ 10 people who’ve been with me a long time. They’re not just employees but friends and part of the family, and I want to have them around me. But I know that if I can’t keep some of them they will find another job and they will survive as well. Two or three times in my life I’ve had to start from nothing and I’ve no problem with doing it again. I’m not worried that tomorrow I have to muck out myself and drive the truck and work more, because I love what I do. When you like what you do the only motivation is not just adding more and more money, it’s about enjoying life with your friends and family.” 

One silly thing you’ve done during your working life? "Maybe the first show I did when working for Tops….there was a show in a place called Heikant and I drove the truck for about three hours with the groom and eight horses, but when we arrived we couldn’t find the showgrounds. There was no navigation system in those days and we drove around for a long time before I realised that I’d taken us to Heikant in Belgium, and the show was in Heikant in Holland! Luckily it wasn’t too far, maybe another two hours drive, and we only missed a couple of classes!”

How are you feeling about the postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games? It changes things for sure, it will be one year later and we don’t know what will happen between now and then. Horses will be one year older, but some that would have been too young this year will be ready for it. It’s different to anything we’ve faced before, but this is what sport is about. You have to be able to adapt to many different situations and make the best of it. There’s nothing we can do about it, and it was the right decision to move it. We’ll deal with this, and somehow we will move on.”

With competition on hold due to the pandemic, this week the FEI launches a brand new series of interviews and stories. First up, one of the best-known Press Officers on the international circuit, Classic Communications’ Marty Bauman, recalls some of his personal memories of FEI World Cup Finals™ in the USA…..
 
In the normal course of events, the full focus of the equestrian sports world should be on the Longines FEI Jumping World Cup™ and FEI Dressage World Cup™ 2020 Finals which were due to kick off at the Thomas & Mack Centre in Las Vegas last Wednesday (15 April). This would have been the tenth Jumping Final and the sixth Dressage Final to be staged in America, and there was a lot hanging in the balance as World No. 1 riders Steve Guerdat from Switzerland and Germany’s Isabell Werth were also chasing new records. 

Steve should have been bidding to become the first-ever four-time champion in the 41-year history of the hugely popular Jumping series, while Isabell was set to seal her fourth consecutive victory with Weihegold, and her fifth in total as the 35th Dressage season drew to a close. 

But nothing in the world is normal right now….

Driving Nancy crazy

“When you think that this week we should be together in Las Vegas, and next Monday I should be flying directly to Lexington for Eventing - my biggest two weeks of the year - but instead I’m sitting at home driving Nancy (his wife) crazy!” says Boston-based Marty whose equestrian connection dates all the way back to the American Jumping Derby in Newport, Rhode Island in 1978 where he worked with Mason Phelps. 

Marty’s natural gift for event management and PR saw him become Director of Public Relations with the USET from 1990 to 2004, and he has been Press Officer for multiple major events including eight of those FEI World Cup™ Finals staged in the US. 
 
His first was in Tampa, Florida in 1989 which attracted a large contingent of European media including the legendary Alan Smith from The Daily Telegraph in London who, as Marty recalls quite correctly, “never went anywhere on his own, he was always escorted by his followers!” 

The event was staged in a small exhibition arena at the Florida State Fairgrounds where another of the sport’s legends, Gene Misch, had been successfully staging horse shows for some time. “Gene was the ultimate promoter, he did more for showjumping in this country than anybody”, Marty says. Nine years earlier the second annual FEI Jumping World Cup™ Final had taken place in Baltimore, Maryland, and Gene had been successful in his bid to bring it back to American soil once again. The 6,000-seater Tampa stadium sold out, and the stellar field included the defending champions from Canada, Ian Millar and Big Ben, and Great Britain’s John Whitaker with his magical grey, Milton. 

Marty recalls Ian and Ben waiting at the in-gate before the Final round. “It was the first World Cup Final for myself and show manager David Distler, and it hadn’t been easy for us. But I remember Ian turning to David and saying “you think you have a lot of pressure on you - just imagine what I’m feeling right now!!” As the history-books show however the great Canadian partnership pipped the British duo to become the first back-to-back FEI Jumping World Cup™ champions.

Spectacular Del Mar

“Del Mar in 1992 was spectacular!” says Marty. According to the rule-book all Finals should be held indoors but the weather in the San Diego area was never likely to threaten so, on this one occasion only, it took place in an outdoor arena, covered by giant netting so that technically there was a roof in place. 

The late John Quirke played a major role in bringing the event to California, enthusiastically supported by Del Mar’s Brooks Parry and the man who created the whole concept of FEI World Cup Jumping, Max Ammann.

Great Britain’s Tina Cassan was at the centre of a major drama in this edition when, during the first leg, she noticed the timers already registered 20 seconds as she began her round over Linda Allen’s course. She pulled up and refused to continue until the clock was restarted, and although the crowd noisily took her side she was eventually eliminated. After a series of intense meetings both she, and Germany’s Ludger Beerbaum who was similarly affected, were reinstated by the Appeals Committee. Ludger celebrated by winning the second leg and Tina eventually finished up eighth, while Austria’s Thomas Fruhmann and Genius jumped fault-free to take the title. 

Marty recalls the tension and excitement at the time. “Raymond Brooks-Ward supported Tina throughout the whole controversy and there was a lot of pressure on me because the media wanted answers, and they wanted them now! But in the end it was all worked out, and Thomas was a great winner”.  

Viva Las Vegas

And then John Quirke came up with an even bigger idea - bringing the Finals to Las Vegas. “He was a real mover and shaker and very good at convincing people of the merits of his great ideas”, Marty explains.

"John said - we’re in the business of entertainment and where’s the entertainment capital of the world? Let’s bring our sport into the 21st century! He wanted to present the sport like it had never been presented before, and in 2000 he made it happen - laser light shows, rock music, fireworks, opening acts, Elvis impersonators and showjumping - it had everything, and the crowds just loved it!"

Brazil’s Rodrigo Pessoa and Baloubet du Rouet were chasing down their third consecutive title, but hope seem to be shattered when the stallion had a fever on arrival at the show. However Baloubet bounced back and the three-peat became a reality when the pair pinned Switzerland’s Markus Fuchs and Tinka’s Boy into runner-up spot on the final day. 

Pessoa and Baloubet surely hold the most extraordinary record in the history of the FEI Jumping World Cup™. After their three wins in a row they went on to finish runners-up in 2001, third in 2002 and second again when the Final returned to Las Vegas in 2003 where Germany’s Marcus Ehning posted the first of his hat-trick of victories. 

Dual Finals

Five years later even more history was made when, for the very first time, the FEI Jumping and Dressage World Cup™ Finals were staged together in Vegas. “It was a spectacular programme in 2005 with day and evening sessions, we sold tickets in all 50 States and 30-odd countries and the Dressage Freestyle Final on that Saturday night was incredible! When Debbie McDonald and Brentina performed to Motown and Soul music the arena was electrified, and when they came down the final line to Aretha Franklin singing “Respect” the crowd got to their feet and went wild! That night changed Dressage forever, and I’m not sure it could have happened anywhere other than Vegas!” Marty says. 

The American pair finished third while Anky van Grunsven came away with the win on Salinero. This was the seventh of nine series victories for the Dutch superstar who created even more headlines when following the win by marrying partner Sjef Janssen in a Vegas wedding chapel, with “Elvis” conducting the ceremony! 

In Jumping, Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum claimed the first of her three titles with Shutterfly that year, but back in Las Vegas two years later she took a surprise fall when seriously in contention on the final day, and it was Switzerland’s Beat Mandli who reigned supreme with Ideo du Thot. And, 15 years after she first stood top of the podium in Gothenburg (SWE) in 1992, Germany’s Isabell Werth won the 2007 Dressage title with Warum Nicht, pinning The Netherlands’ Imke Schellekens-Bartels into second and America’s Steffen Peters into third.

Second American

In 2009 Steffen became only the second American ever to win the FEI Dressage World Cup™, setting the Vegas arena alight with a brilliant ride on Ravel. Meredith and Shutterfly topped the Jumping podium for the third time in their career, and then there was a six-year break before the dual Finals returned to Las Vegas once more. 

Great Britain’s Charlotte Dujardin and the wonderful Valegro were still riding their wave of record-breaking success as they swept to take the 2015 Dressage title, while in Jumping, Switzerland’s Steve Guerdat claimed his first victory riding Paille. But the story Marty remembers best from this edition was about young Irishman Bertram Allen. 

“On the Wednesday night we had the Welcome Reception and Draw in a Club, and they wouldn’t let Bertram in because he was under-age - he was only 19. I had to plead with the club-owners to let him through, so they agreed provided we put a security guard by his side all night to make sure he didn’t drink alcohol. The legal age in the US is 21!” 

But young Bertram went on to show he had all the maturity he needed, winning the first leg with Molly Malone and eventually lining up third at the end of a truly thrilling Final.

Omaha

Omaha in Nebraska became a brand new US venue for the joint-finals in 2017, and the home crowd loved every moment of it when firm favourite, McLain Ward, won the Jumping title he’d been craving for over 25 years. The spectators stayed on to share the prize-giving ceremony with him and his brilliant mare HH Azur who never touched a pole all week. “The feeling around the arena was amazing, everyone was so happy for McLain, and so proud of him!”, Marty says.

In Dressage, Isabell Werth scored the first of her three consecutive wins with Weihegold, and when the action was due to return to Las Vegas this week it looked set to be another nail-biter, with Charlotte Dujardin and her new star ride Mount St John Freestyle ready to get in the way of Isabell’s four-in-a-row - if she could. 

The Thomas and Mack arena had a $75m makeover in the lead-up to the cancelled 2020 Finals including improved seating, a new sound system, new video boards and lighting. “The new VIP area is a giant ballroom with one whole wall of glass from floor to ceiling facing the Strip - the view is incredible! There’s an outdoor balcony and it would have been truly magnificent” says Marty who, like everyone else, is really disappointed this year's event had to be called off.

But the FEI World Cup™ Finals are set to return to Omaha in 2023 and that's where his sights are focused now. “It's such a great venue and we can really look forward to that. And then maybe we'll get back to Vegas soon again too!”

Enjoy coverage of previous FEI World Cup™ Finals on FEI YouTube 

Only seconds separate runner-up Egyptians from their hosts in third

New Zealand claimed the honours in the Longines FEI Jumping Nations Cup™ of the United Arab Emirates at Abu Dhabi (UAE) for the second time in two years today when pinning Egypt into runner-up spot and the host-nation into third.

It was another piece of Kiwi equestrian history in the making as anchorman, Daniel Meech, explained.

“This is only the second time a New Zealand team has ever won a Nations Cup - our first was here in Abu Dhabi in 2018, so this is a really special place for us!”, said the 46-year-old rider who was also a member of that first-time winning side and who helped clinch today’s victory with the only double-clear of the competition.

This second round of the 11-leg Longines FEI Jumping Nations Cup™ 2020 series was the single qualifying competition for teams in the Middle East region. And after a spirited battle filled with plenty of drama, the UAE and Syria have made the cut to the Final in Barcelona (ESP) next October. Only three countries fought that particular battle, and it was the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia who lost out when finishing last of the six competing nations. 

At the halfway stage New Zealand and the UAE shared the lead on a zero score despite elimination for second-line Kiwi rider Richard Gardner who took a fall at the first fence with his 12-year-old gelding Calisto. The United Arab Emirates team looked very comfortable indeed, not requiring the services of their anchor partnership of Mohammed Al Kumeiti and Dalida van de Zuuthoeve when Abdullah Mohd Al Marri (James VD Oude Heihoef), Hamad Ali Al Kirbi (Quel Cadans Z) and Mohammed Ahmed Al Owais (Uto Kerved) all jumped clear. 

But Spanish course designer Santiago Varela, the man who will build the tracks at the forthcoming Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, upped the pressure second time out by replacing deeper cups with flat ones and raising a few poles. There were eight clears in the first round, including a particularly gutsy one from Saudi Arabia’s Dalma Rushdi Malhas and Impero Delle Schiave, but Meech produced the only clear of the second round to leave his team on the winning score of just eight faults.

The Egyptians were lying third, carrying just five faults as the second round began despite elimination for their pathfinders Mouda Zeyada and Morocco who won Friday’s President of the UAE Grand Prix in which Egyptian riders filled three of the top ten placings. The innocuous-looking oxer at fence one put paid to Zeyada’s first-round effort when his 12-year-old stallion slammed on the anchors there, and when the pair collected eight faults second time out that was the team discount score as Mohd Osama El Borai (Quintero), Mohamed Talaat (Darshan) and Abdel Said (Arpege du Ru) each had a fence down to bring their final total to 17.

However they found themselves neck-and-neck with the UAE at the end of the day when a single mistake from Al Marri, double-errors from Al Kirbi and Al Owais and five for Al Kumeiti second time out saw UAE also complete on a score of 17 faults. And when the combined times of the best three riders from each team were taken into account an agonising 2.12 seconds separated the two sides, dropping the hosts to third while Egypt clinched runner-up position.

The three-man German team lined up in fourth with 37 faults while Syria finished fifth with 44. The Syrians collected just 11 faults first time out but their second-line rider, 19-year-old Osama Al Zabibi, was eliminated for a fall in round two while the rest of the team added 33 more. However they are on their way to the 2020 Barcelona Final.

In the end the Kiwi victory was clean and clear even though they were reduced to a team of three when Gardener didn’t return to the ring. Four-time Olympian Bruce Goodin and Backatrops Danny V lowered only the first element of the penultimate double second time out while Tom Tarver-Priebe, in only his second-ever Nations Cup outing, hit the same fence with Popeye. So when double-Olympian Meech made no mistake it was all done and dusted, and it was another great moment for New Zealand sport.

Talking about the ups and downs of the day, Meech said afterwards, “it was disappointing for Richard (Gardner) because he aimed his horse for this class, but you get used to performing in adversity in this game and we put our heads down and ground out the win!”

His lovely 11-year-old grey mare, Cinca, a daughter of Casall, was very impressive today and with Tokyo 2020 selection very much in his mind Meech was happy with her performance.  

“She’s really nice, I felt she jumped even better in the second round when a few of the fences went up. She’s quite green at this level and it was amazing how she just walked in and did it so easy. She’s really grown into herself this year”, he added.

The Longines FEI Jumping Nations Cup™ 2020 series next moves to Coapexpan in Mexico for the second leg of the North/Central America and Caribbean League in early May.

Result here 

Standings after Middle East qualifier here