Equestrian: Hill riding off to Olympics with or without team

New Zealand dressage rider Louisa Hill, pictured on her mount Bates Antonello, will be competing at the London Olympics. Photo / Brett Phibbs

If your knowledge of equine matters is limited to Mark Todd and the eventers, or Ellerslie, welcome to the world of the piaffe, the passage and the half pass.

Confirmation of Louisa Hill's selection for the Olympic Games dressage competition is excellent news for the wider equestrian community, but specifically for the Clevedon woman, who also contested the Athens Games event eight years ago.

She qualified on her 10-year-old Hanoverian horse Bates Antonello - bred by her sister Anna and given to her at four - with a series of strong performances in Australia late last year.

New Zealand qualified a place in the teams event, although that depends on whether other riders can produce results to satisfy tough selection standards.

If New Zealand don't field a team, they are entitled to two individual spots.

"The individual qualifying criteria is pretty hard, but it would be fantastic if we had a team there," Hill said.

Hill's last Olympic campaign was not a success. She and Gabana finished 49th. Preparation was poor. This time Hill, 49, hopes t's will be crossed and i's dotted.

Her German trainer Andreas Mueller has been working with the pair in Clevedon and will link up again in Europe once Hill contests the two big events in New Zealand next month, the nationals at Manfeild Park then Horse of the Year in Hastings.

Pony club events and A&P shows filled a large part of Hill's early years. Her specific interest in dressage came when she returned from her OE and her parents had started breeding Hanoverians.

"I got more and more interested in dressage with them and have done it ever since."

The ideal dressage horse? "They've got to have the right amount of hotness, a lot of natural energy, but also need a good brain."

And what of the key to a successful combination. "I'm still looking for that one," Hill quipped.

"You have to pretty much listen to the horse. It has to teach you how to ride.

"A trainer can tell you 'yes, you have to do this', but the rider has to feel it. It's a bit like describing what something tastes like. Until you've tasted it."

Having a horse stay on message at an arena with the attendant distractions is challenging. "You have to have 100 per cent concentration for the rider, but also the horse has to concentrate 100 per cent on the rider.

"You're always dealing with noise. They're not machines, and that instinct for flight is so entrenched in them. You try to keep them in position where they are listening to you and not the surroundings."

The Olympic event consists of about 60 riders performing a set routine of about six minutes and around 30 movements, with the top 15 advancing to the second, freestyle round.

Hill's challenge? Make that second round.

Oh yes: a piaffe is a calm, composed, elevated trot on the spot; a passage involves elevation of stride and seemingly a pause between the feet touching the ground; and a half pass is a movement where the horse goes on a diagonal, moving sideways and forward at the same time.