The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has today dismissed appeals lodged by Canadian Jumping athlete Nicole Walker and Equestrian Canada against the disqualification of the athlete following an anti-doping rule violation (ADRV) at the Pan-American Games 2019 in Lima (PER).

A sample taken from Nicole Walker, who was a member of the fourth-placed Canadian team and also finished fourth with Falco Van Spieveld in the individual final, tested positive for Benzoylecgonine, a metabolite of cocaine, which is a prohibited substance under the WADA Prohibited Substance List. The sample was taken on 7 August, the day of the team final in Lima.

In its decision of 11 December 2019, the Panam Sports Disciplinary Commission disqualified the individual results obtained by Nicole Walker on 7 and 9 August 2019, and her results from 6 and 7 August 2019 were replaced with those of the fourth Canadian team member for the team final, meaning that Argentina earned a team quota place for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

The appeal to CAS was heard via videoconference on 21 and 23 December 2020, with the FEI as one of a number of third parties. Both Ms Walker and Equestrian Canada requested that the Panam Sports Disciplinary Commission decision be set aside and that the results she obtained in Lima be reinstated. A successful appeal would have meant Canada’s reinstatement to fourth place in the team competition and a qualification for the Canadian Jumping Team for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

Today’s CAS ruling means that the results for Team Canada in the jumping competition at the Pan American Games 2019 are disqualified. As a result, Argentina’s Jumping team quota place for the Tokyo Olympic Games is now confirmed.

The FEI had provisionally suspended Nicole Walker from 8 November 2019 to 26 September 2020, when the provisional suspension was lifted in a preliminary decision by the FEI Tribunal following a request by the athlete. While the CAS decision on disqualification of the Canadian team results is final, the full merits of the case still need to be heard by the FEI Tribunal, which will decide on any further sanctions to be imposed on the athlete.

The CAS media release is available here.

Notes to Editors:

Tokyo 2020 Olympic quota places were available to the three best-ranked teams from Groups D (North America) and/or E (Central & South America) at the Pan-American Games 2019, excluding the teams already qualified. The three teams that earned qualification in Lima were Brazil, Mexico and Canada.

Under Article 11.4 of the Panam Sports Anti-Doping Rules, an anti-doping violation by a member of a team (outside team sports) also leads to disqualification of the result obtained by the team in that competition.

Under the terms of Article 10.2.2 of the Panam Sports Anti-Doping Rules, responsibility for results management in terms of sanctions beyond the event itself shall be referred to the applicable International Federation. This means that any period of ineligibility would be imposed by the FEI.

The FEI Tribunal has issued its Final Decision in a human anti-doping case involving an adverse analytical finding for the prohibited substances Prednisone and Prednisolone, glucocorticoids listed in Class S9 Glucocorticoids under the 2019 World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Prohibited List.

A sample taken from the Japanese para athlete Tsutomu Inoue (FEI ID 10059837/JPN) on 17 October 2019 at the CPEDI3* Gotemba (JPN) returned positive for Prednisone and Prednisolone. The athlete was notified of the violation of the FEI’s Anti-Doping Rules for Human Athletes (ADRHA) on 4 March 2020 and was not provisionally suspended, since the substances found in his sample are classified as Specified Substances.

In its Final Decision, the FEI Tribunal approved the agreement reached between the Athlete and the FEI in which it was stated that the athlete bears no significant fault or negligence for the rule violation. The athlete was prescribed with a medication Prednisolone to treat his medical condition, however, due to a lack of anti-doping education, he did not know it was necessary for him to apply for a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) for Prednisolone before competing internationally.

The athlete is suspended for a period of two months, starting from the date of the FEI Tribunal Final Decision (4 January 2021).

Additionally, the athlete has been disqualified from all results obtained at the event and fined CHF 1,000.

In accordance with Article 13.2 of the ADRHA Rules, the athlete can appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) within 21 days of receipt of the decision.

The full text of the FEI Tribunal’s Final Decision is available here.

Notes to Editors:
FEI Clean Sport - human athletes
The FEI is part of the collaborative worldwide movement for doping-free sport led by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). The aim of this movement is to protect fair competition as well as athlete health and welfare.

WADA’s Prohibited List identifies the substances and methods prohibited in- and out-of-competition, and in particular sports. The substances and methods on the List are classified by different categories (e.g., steroids, stimulants, gene doping).

As a WADA Code Signatory, the FEI runs a testing programme for human athletes based on WADA’s List of Prohibited List of Substances and Methods and on the Code-compliant FEI Anti-Doping Rules for Human Athletes (ADRHA).

For further information, please consult the Clean Sport section of the FEI website here.

He’s a horseman, a sports fan, a legal expert and successful businessman, and as 2021 dawns Israel’s Ken Lalo is filled with anticipation. Because, for the very first time, his country will be represented by a Jumping team at the Olympic Games in Tokyo this summer, and his role in making that happen has been a major one.

“It was a dream of mine for many years”, says the man who has served as President of his National Federation for six terms. “It started partially as my own project because the Board didn’t support me at the time. They felt we should concentrate on establishing more events in Israel and on developing a bigger pool of riders. But I was of the belief that we had to do both”, he points out.

Appointment

I’m interviewing him in late December 2020, after his appointment as Chair of the FEI Atypical Findings Panel which was created prior to implementation of the new FEI Equine Anti-Doping and Controlled Medication Regulations on 1 January 2021.

Ken Lalo’s involvement with the FEI and its legal work dates back to the 1990s. He was Deputy Chair of the FEI Judicial Committee from 1996 to 1999, Chair from 1999, and when that morphed into the FEI Tribunal he continued in the Chair until 2011 when he was appointed as an Arbitrator at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), a role he continues to fill.

The two words that arise most often in conversation with him are “reasonable” and “fair”, and they possibly explain the status of the reputation he has established. Ken has been at the sharp end of many major legal wrangles down the years, so one might expect to be confronted by a tough, opinionated and uncompromising individual. In stark contrast however he is soft-spoken, thoughtful and sympathetic. It is patently obvious that he has the best interests of both athletes and sport at heart.

An Atypical Findings Policy means that it will be possible for the FEI to determine that the presence of some substances will no longer lead to automatic penalties. “Certain substances which can appear in a human athlete as a result of contamination shouldn’t automatically lead in all instances to a legal case, and the FEI expanded this to medications or substances used in horses which I think makes a lot of sense”, he explains. 

Contaminated horse feed

He refers to an incident some years ago when the FEI Tribunal was faced with five positive cases from a single event which were eventually all traced to contaminated horse feed. “It was a mistake on the part of a well-known manufacturer, but we still had to find against the riders and I’m not sure that this was a fair result”, he says.

“Sometimes you create a system and then, as a reaction to outside events, you go too much in one direction or another. When I first joined the Tribunal under Lord Lowry we didn’t treat medication or prohibited substance cases with horses the same as for humans….but then we matched the rules with strict liability and harsher sanctions. In a strict liability system a person is found liable regardless of whether they meant it or not. With laboratories now able to find minuscule amounts of substances it sometimes can go to the extreme and be too harsh”, he says.

In his role with WADA, the decongestant and bronchodilator Clenbuterol has been a major cause for concern. It is widely used by asthma sufferers but, as Ken points out “in some countries like Mexico and China you find it in meat…and it is unfair to penalise an athlete if they test positive for something they couldn’t control under any reasonable circumstances even after applying the strictest measures”.

Lifelong passion

He’s had a lifelong passion for horses even though, as he says, “Israel is a country with no horse tradition to speak of. We had Arabian horses and pleasure riding but not much more. During the British mandate from 1920 to 1948 there were some Jumping events for British solders but at a very low level. 

“But for some reason I loved horses from an early age and I used to go to the stables every day instead of school, so when I was 15 my father suggested I go and ride in England and leave High School even though he was a graduate of Harvard”. It was a wise decision, because Ken would eventually take a similar route without being denied his opportunity to enjoy equestrian sport. And that has led him to where he is today.

From the age of 15 to 18 he trained with British Olympic Dressage coach, Robert Hall, at the famous Fulmer School of Equitation in England and became a British Horse Society Instructor. And after his mandatory national army service he joined Robert at his American base in Massachusetts and rode on the US East Coast Dressage circuit, competing up to international level. By the time he was 20 he had completed his A levels and had law school in his sights, eventually emerging with a Masters and MBA.

But he never stopped riding, jumping up to 1.35m level in Israel. He met his wife, Allison, when he gave her a riding lesson, and his children - two boys and a girl - all rode. “The boys were Israeli champions many times in showjumping”, he says proudly. “Dean now lives and works as an architect in New York, Leiel is in his last year of medical studies in Hungary and Romy studies communications at an Israeli University - and we still have horses and I still ride on occasion”. 

In his “proper job” he has worked for a very large Israeli high-tech conglomerate and, more recently, manages a company in the automotive business in Europe. “We operate in 10 countries with sales that came from zero to half a billion Euros. I hope to grow it to one billion in a year or two”, he says casually. Somehow he has managed to fit the commitment to the FEI and CAS into all that.

Involved

He first became involved with the FEI in 1992. “Israeli equestrian at the time was isolated because we are in the Middle East and most of our other sports were connected with Europe. So I had to persuade the FEI to allow us to become part of Europe” he points out. Of course he succeeded and in 1996 he became a member of the Judicial Committee, Deputy Chairman and eventually Chairman, and then headed the Tribunal when it was formed. “As the FEI became more professional with a legal team in-house then there was separation which I was very much in favour of - it made sense to become a Tribunal with proper processes to decide cases and to allow the FEI legal staff to draft the regulations and prosecute legal cases”, he says.

In his role with CAS he doesn’t deal with equestrian sport “because I’m considered to be too close to the equestrian world”. Instead he is mainly involved with cases in athletics, hockey and football, and mostly around doping-related issues.

“A year ago CAS created an Anti-Doping Division specifically for doping cases, and that was always my strength and preference so I’m part of that”, he points out. In that capacity he was a member of the CAS Anti-Doping Commission at the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea.

Seriously

He takes his work very seriously. “It’s very challenging but in the end I try to apply the rules correctly to the facts and ignore outside noise so to speak, anything not relevant, and take a decision. You have to also understand that a decision must be fair to the entire sport system. Not that you decide just one case, there are other athletes that competed at that event, or other events, and what you decide can affect them too. 

“So in a sense you defend the entire reason that people compete, and that fans go to see sport. They expect the event to be operated under a proper legal system and that the rules are observed, otherwise they will know there’s monkey business going on in their sport and eventually they won’t be interested in it anymore, so the sport loses all its value”. 

Legal cases can be notoriously difficult to untangle, but Ken says he’s always in favour of trying to simplify things, and that speed is of the essence.

“It is of key importance to try to stay in an acceptable timeline. For a legal system to be proper you have to make quick decisions. That’s not always the case I know, which is unfortunate, but it should be the idea. When I was at the Tribunal one of the key ideas I introduced was a specific set of recommended timelines for cases, and I also announced at every General Assembly how many cases were decided within those timelines and how many were outside. So that was a way to judge myself as well. I think this is really important”.

Plain sailing

His role as President of the Israeli Equestrian Federation hasn’t been all plain sailing. Initially he met with significant opposition, “because many of the people who control the sport here are horse dealing and trading and sometimes they have a very narrow perception, even fearing that high-level athletes may take away some of their customers”. So that leads to friction.

“I’ve only one interest - to see the Israeli team being successful internationally. I think every sports organisation should try to get to the top, and for me that’s the Olympic Games!”.

‘At the same time you don’t forget that you need a broad base of the sport in the country to develop future generations of riders, and I’m doing that too. We have quite a strong number of riders at the moment and many of them are young and talented. In Jumping we have four in the top 200 of U25, and even Daniel Bluman is still young!” he adds.

And his top team are also supported by two legends, Hans Hoorn and Olympic, World and European champion Jeroen Dubbeldam who combine the jobs of Chef d’Equipe and trainer. “We looked for people with experience who would hopefully attract a big group of our international riders. I wanted to maximise the support of the riders and their personal trainers and to avoid conflict when it comes to team selection. I’ve learned from my professional career that to keep a good team you need stability, stamina and patience, and I try to apply those principles. So my real role is to keep the Federation stable and as silent as possible on the issue of team selection so we can have a better longterm view of what we are setting out to achieve”. 

Mission

“Our mission is three Olympics until 2028 - Tokyo, Paris and Los Angeles. I know you need mileage to be successful and you can’t get that in a short period of time, but this is something we are trying to build.

“Tokyo will be our first Olympics and I hope we can also qualify for Paris and it becomes more of a tradition for us to be at the Games. On paper we are not amongst the top 10 teams, but on a good day I hope we can somehow have a successful day or a successful individual rider and then we take it as it goes. There is no pressure. I advise the sponsors and the riders that it’s important to build tradition and culture and mutual support as much as possible. It’s not easy when you have individual athletes, and that’s why I’d also like see Hans and Jeroen staying with us for the longterm”.

It hasn’t been easy for Ken Lalo to put a financial support system in place either, but that situation is improving. Before Olympic qualification was achieved in July 2019 the Israeli Equestrian Federation wouldn’t release funding, and everyone involved had to pay their own way. Now however that has changed, and at last there is a sense of moving forward together with big goals ahead, although his position as President is voluntary so he continues to self-finance - “and I think that’s the healthiest system”, he says. 

Travel

In his role as Federation President, he will travel to Tokyo with the team, and his wife Allison will be there too. She likes joining him at events but, unlike her husband, doesn’t ride anymore.

“But we still have a big interest across the whole family. It’s a must because if you have to get up at five in the morning to take the trailer to a horse show and you only get back at night or the next day, then unless the whole family is involved I don’t know how you can continue doing it for years. But that’s my biggest fun, it always keeps the right balance”.

The pandemic has taken its toll in Israel like everywhere else but with around 10% of the population already vaccinated it is hoped the country will be Covid-free by April and, thanks to determined negotiations with government, horse events continued to be staged. “We actually had greater participation at shows in 2020 than in 2019!”. 

His biggest disappointment of the year was the cancellation of the London International Horse Show last month. “Christmas without Olympia was very sad. We go there every year, and night after night we sit through the entire performance, including the dog agility, and love every minute of it - it’s an amazing show!”

But he’s really looking forward to what 2021 has to offer. “I’m generally optimistic and I love everything to do with horse sport and sport generally”, says this man of integrity who has long been a custodian of fair play in the field of sporting ambition…..

His work has taken him to hotspots of conflict all around the globe including Ethiopia, Somalia, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Liberia, Iraq, Kosovo and the Persian Gulf as well as to the heart of Olympic and FEI sport. Award-winning photographer, Jim Hollander, has worked for UPI and Reuters, and was appointed Staff Photographer for EPA covering Israel and the Palestinian Territories in 2003. He has seen a lot in his 71 years.

But one of the most treasured experiences of his exciting lifetime is a 1,000-kilometre ride across Spain that he undertook back in 1973. It took four weeks to cross from Pizarra to Pamplona, and it epitomises the adventurous spirit of an extraordinarily creative family.

Much of the magical story is driven by the character and energy of Jim’s father, Gino Hollander, a decorated WW2 veteran who worked alongside his second wife Barbi as a film-maker before deciding to become a painter. Yes, just like that…. 

Artist

“It was his way, he wanted to be an artist so he made himself one. His philosophy was that if you want to do something and you work at it you’ll get good at it, so you should always do what you want to do. He had a cavalier way of enjoying life to the fullest and he imparted that to the rest of us”, says the American-born photographer. Clearly Gino’s work ethic wasn’t lost on his children. “It wasn’t easy for me to become a photographer but I wanted to do it and I stuck with it and eventually got a break. There were plenty of hard knocks along the way, but I didn’t give up!”, Jim adds.

Gino became a leading light of the abstract expressionism movement of the 1960s and opened a gallery in Greenwich Village, New York. Then a year later he suddenly decided to uproot his entire family and move to Spain. “He packed up three young kids, a couple of dogs, a cat and his wife and took a boat to Europe. While the boat was docked in Gibraltar he visited Torremolinos where he met a real-estate developer who took him to a 25-room house that came with a gardener, a cook and a maid - all for $120 a month - and he decided to take it!”, Jim explains. Thus a Spanish love-affair began that lasted 30 years for his father and continues to this day for Jim himself.

He was just 12 years old when he visited the family in Spain for the first time in 1963. And it was 10 years later that Jim came up with the idea of the long-distance ride. Gino wasn’t keen on the idea to begin with however. “My father and the rest of the family had been on several horse trips from Malaga to Seville so locally we were known as a horse family. But it was just three years after my brother Marc died in an accident, and Dad said it wasn’t the right time for him”, Jim explains.

Marc, four years his senior, was a trainee photographer and the one who inspired Jim’s fascination with the camera lens.  

A friend

With no great enthusiasm coming from the rest of the family Jim invited a friend, Peter Whitehead, to join him instead. “He was a dairy farmer from Vermont who never sat on a horse before, but when he showed up we rode for a month and he picked it up quickly. We bought supplies and equipment and spent hours looking through maps and making our plans”, Jim explains. In the end the lure of the proposed adventure proved too much for Gino and the rest of the crew, and six riders set out on 16th May 1973 while Jim’s stepmother, Barbi, followed in a Volkswagen Camper “with pots and pans and sleeping bags and food for the horses”.

Gino’s horse was Marejada, Jim rode Flamenca and Peter was partnered with Alexi. Jim’s sisters, Lise who was 16 years old and Siri who was 14, rode Gaspacho and Yael while his younger brother Scott, aged just 11, rode an un-named mare. They set out in appalling weather conditions, torrential rain creating a sea of mud, but the trip was underway at last. And what an adventure it was. 

Armed with a diary, a Leica M5 camera and rolls of film, Jim kept a record of the extraordinary journey. He didn’t know it at the time, but it would mark the beginning of the documentary photography career that he would follow for the rest of his life. 

Inched across Spain

“We basically took off with a Firestone map of Spain in pouring rain and day by day inched across Spain, almost to the French border. We spent three weeks in the saddle with about a week of downtime drying ourselves out and resting the horses.” It was during the final years of the Franco era, and the country they passed through was very different to today. 

“We rode through the back country and saw places most tourists would never get to see. Some of the towns don’t exist anymore because so many rural farmers moved to the cities and now they are dead towns. We camped out almost every night, cooking food with the horses tied up close by, we lived like cowboys and in the mornings we would break camp and ride north, asking a farmer how to get to the next village. He’d tell us to follow that path, go as far as the big olive tree and then turn right. I don’t know if you could that today in Spain because there are so many more fences. The people are still really hospitable but there are less farmers and more private land with ‘no trespassing’ signs”, Jim explains.

After three weeks together some stresses began to develop amongst the group, “so Peter and I broke off and we did the last week with just the two of us, so we arrived in Pamplona before the rest. That last week was really exciting, we rode for hours, with nowhere to sleep and got caught in the rain again. But there was a great sense of achievement at the end”, he says.

And when they all got together again the stress was gone, and it was time to celebrate.

Jim continued riding until his father left Spain in 1991 and went back to America. Gino passed away four years ago at the age of 92, and was painting until the day he died. 

Returned

The rest of the family also eventually returned to the US while Jim lives in Jerusalem, Israel. 

“Siri is a great horsewoman and owns a few horses in New Mexico. She’s a very successful sculptress and specialises in horse sculptures. And Scott is an amazing rider as well. He’s 12 years younger than me and works as a grip in the movie business, makes commercials and is a rock climber and skier. The three of us are very creative”, Jim says. 

In recent years Jim’s connection with horses has been mostly from behind the lens, covering the equestrian events at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, London in 2012 and Rio in 2016. He was commissioned by the FEI for the Final of the Longines FEI Jumping Nations Cup™ series in Barcelona on three occasions and the Longines FEI Jumping World Cup™ Final in Paris in 2018 and was looking forward to returning to Barcelona in 2020 until the pandemic got in the way. 

He says he has enjoyed capturing the great rivalry between Dressage riders Isabell Werth from Germany and America’s Laura Graves and that his Jumping hero is Great Britain’s Nick Skelton. He loves “shooting” horses - “when you are close with a long lens and you can see the horse’s muscles ripple and smell their sweat it all speaks about the essence of the sport”, he says.  

He believes he owes a lot of his success to the experience gained on what the family still describe to this day as “the Hollander horse trip”. Using his diary and photos, in 1993 Jim published “From Pizarra to Pamplona - Across Spain on Horseback” to recall it in all its glory. The book is as much a homage to his late father as the story of a shared experience, and it captures a moment in time when horses and people could still roam the Spanish countryside in a way that would be impossible today.

In the epilogue is an extract from Barbi’s own book “Tapestry” written in 2008 in which she writes….. “mile after mile, day after day, we traveled with the soft clop, clop of horses’ hooves beating out its mesmerizing rhythm; ever-changing cloudscapes, flights of birds, past orange grove and olive grove, fields of tender, pale, new green barley struggling up in threadbare fields, then mile upon mile of lovingly-tended grape vines. Off in the distance a sleepy village - always off in the distance…..No supermercados here. No McDonald’s. This forgotten land, smouldering under the luminous Iberian sun, a shabby remnant of a proud past still living in another century, still going on about its daily life, unchanged, these many years”.

No wonder Jim treasures the memories……

Marco Fusté (ESP), one of the best known figures on the international Jumping circuit, has been appointed as Jumping Director for the Federation Equestre Internationale (FEI), the global governing body for equestrian sports.

Mr Fusté has been Director of Jumping at the Spanish Equestrian Federation and chef d’equipe of the Spanish Jumping team since 2006. He will take up the new role at the FEI on 1 February 2021 and his first task will be a full revision of the FEI Jumping Rules. He replaces interim Jumping Director Deborah Riplinger, who will remain at FEI Headquarters until the end of June next year to ensure an optimal handover.

“To be appointed as FEI director jumping Director is absolutely my dream job,” Marco Fusté said. “Horses and equestrian sport, particularly Jumping, have been a part of my life for so long and I see this new role as the pinnacle of my career. Jumping is already the FEI’s largest discipline and, while I know the challenges involved, I also see great opportunity for further expansion, particularly in South America, so that we can develop the sport more broadly. I can’t wait to get started.”

His lifelong love of horses was cemented at the age of seven when his grandfather took him to a riding school right in the middle of Barcelona. He went on to compete on the Spanish national Jumping circuit, prior to studying law at the University of Barcelona Law School.

He served as a member of the FEI Jumping Committee from 2011 to 2015, and a member of the European Equestrian Federation (EEF) Jumping and Nations Cup working groups. He also worked at both the Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games and the FEI World Equestrian Games™ 2002 in Jerez (ESP). He is a recipient of the Gold Medal of the Real Federación Hípica Española, the Federation’s highest distinction.

His initial entry into the workplace came in 1986, when he started as Event Manager at the Spanish sports events company Organización y Gestión Deportiva S.A, before a nine-year stint with the World League of American Football, NFL Europe and NFL Europe League. He then switched codes to become General Manager at the Royal Spanish Tennis Federation, with Spain scoring its first Davis Cup victory during his tenure. In 2001 he set up Barcelona Sports Consulting, a specialist company organising horse shows and working directly with Organising Committees, before moving to his current role at the Spanish National Federation.

“Marco Fusté is tailor-made for the role of Jumping Director at the FEI,” FEI Secretary General Sabrina Ibáñez said. “He has valuable expertise in the sports world outside the specialist equestrian sphere, and has been involved in our sport from every angle, as an athlete, event organiser and chef d’equipe. He also has hands-on governance experience at the National Federation and at international level as a member of the FEI Jumping Committee. He has encyclopaedic knowledge of the Jumping discipline and is respected and admired by everyone within the sport. We are very much looking forward to welcoming him to Headquarters in February.”

The FEI announced the appointment of Christina Abu-Dayyeh (JOR) as Endurance Director last week (16 December). Recruitment for both positions was done in partnership with British-based agency Hartmann Mason Executive Search.

Marco Fusté (ESP), who will start in his new role as FEI Jumping Director on 1 February 2021, pictured after leading the Spanish team to victory in the Longines Challenge Cup at last year's Longines FEI Jumping Nations Cup™ Final in Barcelona. (FEI/Lukasz Kowalski).

It’s probably not that surprising that David O’Connor’s career thrived throughout the era of long-format Eventing, because if you’ve crossed the vast expanse of North America on horseback when you’re just 11 years old then going the distance is unlikely to be daunting at any stage of your life. 

The 2000 Olympic Eventing champion retired from international competition in 2004, served as President of the United Stated Equestrian Federation (USEF) for the next eight years and was inducted into the United States Eventing Association’s Hall of Fame in 2009. He now trains young horses, coaches riders and designs courses, and he sees it all as a natural progression. “I’m in this game 45 years, and as time goes on you move on to the next level. For me that’s the training side of the sport, and I really enjoy it a lot”, says the man who became Chair of the FEI Eventing Committee three years ago.

He’s travelling to a show the day I call him up to ask him about his life and times. So how did he get started with horses? Did his family have a generational connection with them? 

“No, my mum was brought up in suburban London (GBR) and she rode a bit, but it was only when she came to the US that she really got into it. My father wasn’t horsey at all, he worked in the Navy, but my brother Brian and I went to the local Pony Club when we were kids and that’s how it all began”, he explains. Mum, Sally O’Connor, would go on to become a Dressage rider, judge and author while Brian’s voice is one of the most recognisable on the US equestrian commentary circuit. David, meanwhile, became a superstar Eventing athlete, greatly admired for the long and successful partnerships he established with a superb string of horses.  

Ambitions

He says he didn’t have big ambitions as a child. “We weren’t wealthy so I never thought horses would be my life”, he explains. But when he was 17 years old fate intervened. Spotted by legendary coach Jack Le Goff, he joined training sessions for development riders staged at the USEF Training Centre in Massachusetts (USA) and was invited to stay on. “It was an amazing opportunity, a door that opened for me and I kinda ran through it as fast as I could!”, David says. “I was there for four-and-a-half years, and without that opportunity I’m really not sure where my life would have gone”.

His teenage heroes included Jimmy Wofford, Mike Plumb “and Bruce (Davidson) who was dominating the sport across the world at the time”. David has maintained a lifetime connection with Jimmy, who he describes as a mentor and great friend. Like Jimmy, David’s career almost completely embraced the long-format era of Eventing which was very different to the scaled-back test horses and riders face today.

The old three-day formula consisted of Dressage on day 1 followed by Roads and Tracks, Steeplechase, more Roads and Tracks and then Cross-Country on day 2, with showjumping on the third and final day.

“I was the last long-format winner at the Olympic Games (Sydney 2000) and World Championships (Jerez 2002) and I experienced the change to the modern-day sport”, he points out. “It’s certainly different doing a 13-minute course back then and an 11-minute course now. Today the intensity is higher, so horses can get out of breath quite quickly if you don’t manage your speed. Back then we managed galloping all the time, the horses were very fit, more thoroughbred types. There are horses that are not as thoroughbred that can do quite well in a 4-Star today but they can’t manage a 5-Star. Now it’s all about turning and accuracy and having horses jump narrow fences….the rideability is more important than the athletic ability, whereas the athletic ability was more important back then. And there’s a huge difference between showjumping after cross-country and showjumping before”, he adds.

Brilliant horses

David had many brilliant horses, the best-remembered possibly his Olympic rides Giltedge and Custom Made. At the 1996 Games in Atlanta he rode Giltedge to team silver and Custom Made to individual fifth place, and four years later Custom Made claimed individual gold in Sydney (AUS) while Giltedge was on the bronze-medal-winning US side.

So how would these two special Irish-bred horses cope with the challenges of the modern sport?

“Giltedge would be just as successful now as he was back then because he was extremely rideable and a very good showjumper, in fact he would have an even better career now because he would have been totally in the game! Custom Made would still be a big 5-Star horse, he would revel in it just like he did because his big wins were all over galloping courses like Badminton, Kentucky, the Sydney Olympics, but probably not so much at Olympic Games and World Championships because the courses are getting shorter and more twisting and turning and that wouldn’t play to his strengths.

“One of the great things about these two, and many of our other horses like Biko and Prince Panache, was that they stayed sound and played the game for so long. They were Irish-bred and we can’t afford to lose the genetic advantages that the Irish bloodlines bring, like longevity and athleticism, which maybe some of the other countries don’t have”, he says. 

When it comes to longevity, Custom Made was a perfect example, only passing away last year at the ripe old age of 34. 

Prepare

So how did he prepare horses like these two all-time greats? “With a lot of long, slow work three or four months away from the event to put a base on them, and faster work closer to the competition”, he explains. The long, slow work was exactly that. “Sometimes you’d spend two hours on them riding up and down hills, trotting, slow cantering and walking. Some of the kids coming up now don’t want to put that work in”, he points out. 

And did the horses have similar personalities? “No, Custom Made (aka Tailor) had tremendous strength and scope and the most unbelievable gallop. He never got tired in his life and was an incredible athlete but he was quite sensitive about a lot of things and when he got nervous he got very strong.

“But I never had a horse try as hard as Giltedge, he always rose to the occasion. There was this super-power thing that happened at a competition, he would turn into a horse that fought for you more than any other horse I’ve had in my life. That’s why he became such a great team horse for the US. I only ever had one rail down in showjumping with him and he was always going to be in the top 10 - he was one of those troopers you could always rely on”, David says proudly.

He relishes the relationships he had with both horses. “At the beginning of their careers I felt they were part of my career but towards the end of their competitive cycle it was me who was part of theirs! I just had to do my job and let them get on with theirs. When they retired we gave demonstrations and they became even more famous. They had a huge fan-club, people just loved them, and not many horses get that because there are not a lot of really famous horses around anymore - I think their longevity had a lot to do with that”, he comments.

Family ride

When I ask him about the family ride across the United States of America I can tell that there’s a determined streak in the O’Connor gene pool. He recalls a family dinner during which his mother announced her plan. “She had this romantic image of the US as the Wild West….John Wayne and all that. We lived in Maryland on the East Coast and she came up with the idea that we should ride to California on the West Coast, and the more people said it couldn’t happen the more she was determined it would. It was an amazing decision for her to make!”, David says with a laugh.

So on 13th May 1973 they set off on the 3,000 mile trip that took 14 weeks to complete. “I was 11, Brian was 13 and it was just the three of us. We ended up going to Oregon instead of California because otherwise we would have had to cross the desert, and we didn’t quite make it to the west coast because Brian and I had to go back to school at the end of August”, David says. Brian’s horse did the full distance while David and Sally both needed remounts en route, turning the original two out to rest until they were collected on the way home. 

“My mother knew people across the first-half of the country and we stayed with them about every 10 days and gave the horses a couple of days off each time. But we didn’t know anybody beyond the Mississippi River so we just knocked on people’s doors when we got to the end of the day, explained what we were doing and everyone East of the river said “you’re going WHERE?!!” and everybody West said “you’re from WHERE?!!” We were doing 30-35 miles a day and local newspapers started following us. 

“It was an amazing trip for an 11-year-old kid and taught me a lot about spending time with horses and appreciation of the land and how people make a living. And it gave me a sense of time, not control over time but how to enjoy being in the moment, and that has always stayed with me. It was 47 years ago, and I still think about it often”, David says, clearly enjoying the memories.

Bitless

I ask David about riding without a bit in the horse’s mouth. He’s quite an advocate for bitless riding, but he points out that it has its limitations when it comes to competition.

“We start all of our young horses in rope halters without a bit, and when we are going on a quiet hack most are in just a halter, and we practice this a lot. They learn to go, stop, turn, rein-back and all that, so when we put a bit in their mouth there is no anxiety about it.

“But there’s a huge difference when you are out on a course for 8 to 10 minutes galloping at a speed of 570 metres a minute. You can’t compare riding in a ring or quietly hacking with the need for the horse to be able to answer cross-country questions - they are two totally different things. From a risk-management point of view there is no way I would ever go cross-country for miles without having a bit”, he says.

Admired

I ask him about the people he most admired during his time at the top of the sport and the first person he mentions is, unsurprisingly, New Zealand’s Mark Todd - “a great horseman and a good friend”. 

He describes the period when he and his wife and fellow-Olympian, Karen O’Connor, lived in England as “magical. In the 90s we were part of a group of riders including Mary King (GBR) and Blythe Tait (NZL) who were all there at the same time competing against each other and who became the best of friends. It drove us all to be better, there were 15 players at the top of the world sport all living near each other and it was a very special time”, he recalls. 

So why didn’t he and Karen stay in Great Britain? “We had the opportunity to ride for Mrs Mars who became a big supporter of ours. She bought a place in Virginia and asked us to come back and run a High Performance Programme out of there. But if that opportunity hadn’t come our way we might have stayed - who knows!”, he says.

Wisdom

Finally I ask David to share some wisdom with the next generation of young Event athletes. “The main thing is to have a goal that’s way out in front of you and to work hard to get there. Surround yourself with the best people you can find and learn your craft to the nth degree. 

“As Mark Twain wrote ‘it’s very easy to learn the tricks of the trade and never learn the trade’. You need to learn every aspect of the trade and that includes the people part, the horse part, the riding part, the competitive part and the management part. You don’t become a winner because you’re talented and you deserve it….you have to be driven and you need to be hungry if you want to succeed.

“And one of the things I tell all my students is that when you get an opportunity (like David did when spotted by Jack Le Goff) then grab it with both hands!”.

The FEI Tribunal has issued its Final Decisions in a number of equine and human anti-doping cases.

The first case involves an adverse analytical finding for the prohibited substance Furosemide, a diuretic listed in Class S5, Diuretics and Masking Agents, in the 2019 World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Prohibited List.

A sample taken from the Finnish athlete Jaana Kivimäki (FEI ID 10046626/FIN) on 1 October 2019 during the CPEDI3* Lisbon (POR) returned positive for Furosemide. The athlete was notified of the violation of the FEI’s Anti-Doping Rules for Human Athletes (ADRHA) on 2 December 2019. She was not provisionally suspended, as the substance in the Athlete’s Sample is a Specified Substance.

In its Final Decision, the FEI Tribunal approved the agreement reached between the Athlete and the FEI in which it was stated that the athlete bears no significant fault or negligence for the rule violation. The athlete had been prescribed Furosemide by her doctor, but due to lack of anti-doping education was unaware that she needed to apply for a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) prior to competing internationally.  

The athlete is suspended for a period of two months, starting from the date of the FEI Tribunal Final Decision (7 December 2020).

Additionally, the athlete has been disqualified from all results obtained at the event and fined CHF 500.

The parties can appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) within 21 days of receipt of the decision.

The full text of the FEI Tribunal’s Final Decision is available here.

The second case involves the horse Victotop Occitan (FEI ID 105EV49/UAE), trained by Ghanim Mohd Al Marri (FEI ID 10048641/UAE). Samples taken from the horse at the CEI2* 120 – Bou Thib (UAE) on 13 December 2019 tested positive for the Banned Substance Testosterone.

The trainer of the horse was unable to give any plausible explanation for the presence of the Prohibited Substance in the horse’s sample.

In its Final Decision, the FEI Tribunal imposed a two-year Period of Ineligibility on the trainer. The Provisional Suspension, which came into effect on 20 February 2020, is credited against the Period of Ineligibility imposed in the decision, meaning the trainer will be ineligible until 19 February 2022. He was also fined CHF 7,500 and asked to pay costs of CHF 2,000.

The parties can appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) within 21 days of receipt of the decision (15 December 2020).
The full text of the FEI Tribunal’s Final Decision is available here.

Separately, the FEI has announced new adverse analytical findings (AAF) involving equine prohibited substances. The cases involve *Banned Substance and a Controlled Medication Substance under the FEI’s Equine Anti-Doping and Controlled Medication Regulations (EADCMRs).

In the following Endurance case, the athlete and the trainer have been provisionally suspended until the FEI Tribunal renders its decision. The horse has been provisionally suspended for two months from the date of notification.

Case 2020/BS12:
Horse: GER ASHIR (103UH98/KSA)
Person Responsible: Odai Alqurashi (FEI ID 10203848/KSA)
Trainer: Munir Alfaqeih (FEI ID 10062545/KSA)
Event: CEI1*100 - Riyadh (KSA), 06-07.11.2020
Prohibited Substance(s): Diisopropylamine
Date of notification: 9 December 2020

In the following Jumping case, the athlete has been provisionally suspended until the FEI Tribunal renders its decision. The horse has been provisionally suspended for two months from the date of notification.

* Case 2020/BS13
Horse: YAYA (105CF05/KSA)
Person Responsible: Abdulrahman Alrajhi (FEI ID 10048311/KSA)
Event: CSI3*-W - Riyadh (KSA), 18-21.11.2020
Prohibited Substance(s): Diisopropylamine
Date of notification: 14 December 2020

In the following Endurance case, involving the Controlled Medication Substance Lidocaine, the trainer has been provisionally suspended until the FEI Tribunal renders its decision as this is a second violation of the ECM Regulations. The athlete, however, is not suspended and has the possibility to accept the administrative procedure within 14 days of the date of notification.

** Case 2020/FT23:
Horse: GARIF (106RE57/RUS)
Person Responsible: Ekaterina Vasilyeva (FEI ID 10153650/RUS)
Trainer: Mukhamed Kalov (FEI ID 10058061/RUS)
Event: CEI2*120 - Moscow, Otrada (RUS), 24-26.09.2020
Prohibited Substance(s): Lidocaine
Date of notification: 15 December 2020

Details on these cases can be found here.

* Following further review, and in accordance with Article 7.1.3 (ii) of the EAD Rules, the FEI has decided that there is no EAD Rule violation, and will not proceed with this case.

** The Russian National Federation has confirmed to the FEI that Mukhamed Kalov was incorrectly listed as the trainer of the horse Garif due to an administrative error. Following further investigation, the FEI has confirmed that Mr Kalov had no link whatsoever with the horse and, as a result, the provisional suspension imposed on the trainer has now been lifted.

Notes to Editors:
FEI Clean Sport - human athletes
The FEI is part of the collaborative worldwide movement for doping-free sport led by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). The aim of this movement is to protect fair competition as well as athlete health and welfare.
WADA’s Prohibited List identifies the substances and methods prohibited in- and out-of-competition, and in particular sports. The substances and methods on the List are classified by different categories (e.g., steroids, stimulants, gene doping).
As a WADA Code Signatory, the FEI runs a testing programme for human athletes based on WADA’s List of Prohibited List of Substances and Methods and on the Code-compliant FEI Anti-Doping Rules for Human Athletes (ADRHA).

For further information, please consult the Clean Sport section of the FEI website here.

FEI Equine Prohibited Substances
The FEI Prohibited Substances List is divided into two sections: Controlled Medication and *Banned Substances. Controlled Medication substances are medications that are regularly used to treat horses, but which must have been cleared from the horse’s system by the time of competition. Banned (doping) Substances should never be found in the body of the horse and are prohibited at all times.

In the case of an adverse analytical finding (AAF) for a Banned Substance, the Person Responsible (PR) is automatically provisionally suspended from the date of notification (with the exception of certain cases involving a Prohibited Substance which is also a **Specified Substance). The horse is provisionally suspended for two months.

Information on all substances is available on the searchable FEI Equine Prohibited Substances Database.

The FEI Board took a series of key decisions on allocation, cancellation, and reopening of bids for FEI Championships at its videoconference meeting this week.

The Board agreed to allocate the FEI Endurance World Championship 2022 to Isola della Scala in Verona (ITA). 

“We are pleased to have the experience and passion of the Verona Organising Committee for the FEI Endurance World Championship in 2022,” FEI Secretary General Sabrina Ibáñez said. “We will be working closely with the Organisers and the Italian Equestrian Federation to ensure that this is a top-notch sporting event that challenges the strategic skills of our athletes and brings the sport back to its original roots of Endurance riding rather than Endurance racing.”    

Separately, the Board agreed to reopen the bid process for the FEI Eventing European Championship 2021, following numerous requests from a number of European Eventing stakeholders, including National Federations and Athletes, and with the full support of the European Equestrian Federation and the FEI Eventing Committee. The bid process will open on 18 December 2020 and National Federations and Organisers have until 15 January 2021 to apply to the FEI. The FEI Board will take a decision on the allocation of this Championship at its March 2021 teleconference.

Following the cancellation by the Organiser of the FEI Dressage European Championship U25 2021 in Donaueschingen (GER), the Board agreed to reopen the bidding process for the Championship. The deadline for expressions of interest to be submitted to the FEI (bidding@fei.org) is 15 January 2021 and the FEI Board will take a decision on the allocation of this Championship at its February 2021 teleconference.

Due to the Covid-19 related cancellation of the FEI WBFSH Dressage World Breeding Championship for Young Horses 2020 in Verden (GER), and following consultation with all parties involved, the Board agreed to reallocate the 2021 Championship to Verden. The 2021 Championship had originally been allocated to Ermelo (NED) for the three-year cycle, 2021-2023. The Board has now agreed to allocate the 2024 Championship to Ermelo, meaning that the Dutch venue will host the Championships in 2022, 2023 and 2024.

Based on the recommendation of the FEI Endurance Committee, and in consultation and with the support of the Netherlands National Federation, the Board agreed to terminate the Host Agreement with the Organiser of the FEI Endurance European Championship 2021 and FEI Endurance World Championship for Young Riders & Juniors 2021.

Both these Endurance Championships were scheduled to be held at the Netherlands National Federation-owned venue at Ermelo (NED), and the FEI will now consult with the National Federation about a potential alternative Organiser to host the Championships at the Ermelo venue on the original dates (6-11 September 2021).

Christina Abu-Dayyeh (JOR) has been appointed as Endurance Director for the Federation Equestre Internationale (FEI), the global governing body for equestrian sports.

Ms Abu-Dayyeh, 31, has been Secretary General of the Royal Jordanian Equestrian Federation since 2017 and will start in her new role at the FEI on 1 April 2021. Her arrival in Lausanne (SUI) will further improve the gender balance in the FEI management team, with seven females and eight males.

During her time at the Jordanian National Federation, Ms Abu-Dayyeh was responsible for the management of all equestrian disciplines in the country, as well as heading up the Organising Committees for the biggest equestrian events in Jordan across all disciplines. She also worked directly with the Ministry of Agriculture on all equestrian matters, including quarantine procedures, animal welfare and the import/export of horses.

Prior to taking on the role at the National Federation, she worked as a marketing and communications consultant at the Princess Alia Foundation, and Al Ma’wa for Nature and Wildlife in the Jordanian capital, Amman, the only wildlife sanctuary in the Middle East. She was a research analyst at a political consulting start-up in Abu Dhabi, and also worked in consulting and recruitment roles in Vancouver (CAN).

Ms Abu-Dayyeh has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada and a Masters in Management and International Business from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

“We are very happy to welcome Christina Abu-Dayyeh to the FEI to take on this really important role”, FEI Secretary General Sabrina Ibáñez said. “The discipline of Endurance needs strong governance and we are confident that Christina is the right person to deliver the right mix of firmness and tact. She comes to us with a wealth of experience, not just in equestrian sport, but also in marketing and communications, skill sets that she will need for this post. Her knowledge of our sport in the Middle East, where Endurance is such a key part of the local culture, has given her a crucial insight and a vision that will undoubtedly benefit both the FEI and the discipline itself.”

“One of my proudest achievements at the Royal Jordanian Equestrian Federation has been creating open lines of communication and the transparency that was needed to inspire the trust of the community and stakeholders, which ultimately gave me a credible voice to move the sport forward in Jordan”, Christina Abu-Dayyeh said. “Leaning in and actively listening to those in the field who have mastered so many elements of it kept me humble.

Ms Abu-Dayyeh has strong Endurance experience, both at a national and international level, as the Jordanian National Federation is the main organiser of Endurance events in the country. She singles out Endurance as her favourite of all the disciplines that she is currently responsible for in her role as Secretary General in Jordan.

“I was aware that our Endurance Officials were having trouble fulfilling their crucial role of officiating at events and quickly realised that the main issue was miscommunication and the athletes’ lack of education on the rules. We made a huge effort to improve the knowledge base of our athletes, educating all stakeholders on the technical aspects of the sport and what it means to be a true horseperson, with the result that numbers increased by over 120% for our national rides.

“I believe that education and communication with the athletes and their entourage are key to improving horse welfare in the discipline internationally, continuing the fantastic work already done by the Endurance Temporary Committee.”

The FEI has been actively seeking a replacement Endurance Director since the announcement in March of this year that the Endurance & Driving Department was to be restructured with the aim of further streamlining management of the Endurance discipline. The restructuring was to allow for a special focus on a discipline that requires stringent oversight, although plans for the speedy recruitment of a new Endurance Director were significantly slowed by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ms Abu-Dayyeh will replace Manuel Bandeira De Mello (POR), who joined the FEI in 2014 as Endurance Director. He will stay on in the role until Ms Abu-Dayyeh arrives in Switzerland and will remain at the FEI with the new title of Director Driving, Para Driving & Special Projects, allowing for an optimal handover to the new Endurance Director.

Allocation of teams to Europe Division 1 events for the Longines FEI Jumping Nations Cup™ 2021 series have been confirmed this week, giving equestrian sports fans something really positive to look forward to next season following a year of significant disruption to the worldwide sporting calendar.

Europe Division 1 will start with the same 10 teams for the 2021 season – defending champions Ireland, along with Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and Sweden.

Each team can earn qualifying points at its allocated four of the seven Europe Division 1 events. The seven best-ranked teams will qualify for the Final, which takes place in Barcelona (ESP) in October 2021. The Division 1 opening qualifier takes place in La Baule (FRA) in May 2021.

The allocations table indicates the venues where eligible teams will be chasing FEI Nations Cup™ points, but the starting field at these events will not be restricted to those countries alone.  Other nations can also compete in legs of the series throughout the Europe Division 1 season.    

Further information on the Division 1 allocations can be viewed here.

The season calendar for the Longines FEI Jumping Nations Cup™ 2021 series can be viewed here.

About the Longines FEI Jumping Nations Cup™ series

The Longines FEI Jumping Nations Cup™ is equestrian sport's most prestigious team challenge, with teams from around the world competing for one of the most coveted prizes in the Olympic discipline.  

Celebrating 112 years of team competition in 2021, the Final will be held in the beautiful city of Barcelona (ESP), at the Real Club de Polo, where up to 18 teams will have the opportunity to battle it out to hold the prestigious Longines FEI Jumping Nations Cup™ trophy aloft!