Equestrian: Life at the gallop

By CARROLL DU CHATEAU

During the European three-day eventing season from April to October, a small team of British-based New Zealand eventers work a punishing circuit which stretches from Burleigh and Badminton in England through to Europe.

Top names over the decades include Blyth Tait, Tinks Pottinger, Andrew Scott, Vaughn Jefferis and the presiding genius, Mark Todd himself.

Now, with Todd retired, the group is headed by Tait, backed by Andrew Nicholson, Dan Jocelyn and about 10 eventers on the way up. The New Zealanders meet each other most weekends at competitions, then peel off again down the leafy lanes of Surrey and Kent to spend their weeks perfecting their techniques - and training horses for the European elite.

The New Zealand way with horses is in hot demand from royalty down. Our horses are recognised as the toughest thoroughbreds in the world. Our riders are brilliant and brave.

And the international lifestyle is an exciting drawcard. Elite eventers - and even up-and-comers - gain automatic entry to the blue-blooded English horsey set: luxurious Land-Rovers and horse trucks; stately homes with stables; career grooms; posh parties; and prices of as much as $200,000 for top New Zealand eventers.

It is a heady mix, especially for young New Zealand riders from back-country blocks in places like Te Awamutu who learned to ride on the lambing beat.

Here in New Zealand horses grow big hearts, stamina, athletic ability, quietness and solid bones. This comes partly from breeding, partly from grazing outside and partly from being exercised on some of the toughest hill and beach country in the world.

Out of Auckland in particular, a keen kid can still buy a promising horse for $500, ride it to the pony club on a neighbouring hill farm, teach it to jump over logs and scramble up banks, then move up through the eventing ranks.



Scott, who was part of the gold medal-winning New Zealand team at the 1990 World Championships in Stockholm, says: "Our horses are not so valuable when we start riding as kids. In England they pay so much for young horses that they then treat them with kid gloves to the extent that if they see a couple of youngsters galloping round the paddock enjoying themselves, they bring them in in case they get hurt."

Scott, whose parents Janet and Warren are high in the New Zealand equestrian world, was "really into show jumping" at 18.

"I sold a horse to Mark Todd's boss and was offered a trip to go with the horses to England and groom and ride. It turned out to be more grooming than riding, but I learned a lot. Lucinda Green and Mark talked me into going eventing. I spent six months on the circuit with Mark."

For Scott, as for all New Zealand eventers, Todd with his ability to literally melt into a horse was the rider who clinched the Kiwi reputation and showed other riders the way - both on and off the field.

"I don't think people in New Zealand realise what a genius Mark is with a horse," Scott says. "I know he made it so much easier for the rest of us to come through.

"He creates an understanding with the horse. And technically he's very, very good. His balance and rhythm is amazing. A lot of us have developed these techniques - but we all did it by watching and copying him."

Given the money, not to mention the adrenalin kick that comes with putting your life in the hooves of a thundering 16-hand horse - it is not surprising that eventers go wild before - and after - they have performed.

"You've got young, focused, ambitious people," Scott says, "and if you put them in a situation where it's possible, they're going to have fun."

Scott particularly remembers the continuing celebrations after his team won at Stockholm.

"New Zealand parties are legendary. It's just the camaraderie of like-minded people - like, 'We won!' The adrenalin rush is huge. You've achieved a goal and you have to enjoy the moment."

Often the parties are impromptu. But whereas on this side of the world they tend to be in the stables among the horses and hay, in Europe they are at stately homes.

When Scott's parents visited him in England in 1990 they remember the practical jokes going wild. "I went off to the loo," Warren says. "It was all low light in there and I didn't look much until I had this awful realisation that there wasn't the normal tinkling sound. I looked down and saw that someone, Tinks Pottinger I think, had covered the top of the loo with Gladwrap."

There is also the sheer sexiness that comes with riding beautifully bred, super-fit horses.

Bestselling British writer Jilly Cooper describes the situation succinctly in her book, Riders:

"A girl wearing a white shirt, a black coat, skin-tight breeches and long boots walked over and looked the horse over critically. Jake thought how attractive some women looked in riding clothes, the austerity and severity of the uniform contrasting with the wild wantonness beneath.

"He imagined her long thighs threshing in ecstasy, while the hat, tie and haughty pink and white face remained primly in place. He imagined lying on a bed of straw, as tempting as a newly made bed."

Todd, who did not marry until late 1986 was, apparently, a legend with women. Eventers talk about strings of gorgeous girls.

Then there are the drugs. Although Scott "never saw anyone snort coke and couldn't prove it," he is "not naive enough" to think cocaine isn't around in the upper echelons of the horsey set, as it is in all elite sports. "It's generally accepted in sporting circles that cocaine leaves the system within three days and is therefore rarely picked up in drug tests."

Marijuana, on the other hand, is frowned upon. Scott expels his young riders if they're caught smoking it: "A heavy night on alcohol and you're hung over with decreased reaction times for 48 hours. Marijuana affects people for three weeks minimum."

New Zealand horses and riders probably dominate eventing because in Europe, where a child's pony costs thousands of pounds and stabling over winter almost as much, riding, hunting, jumping and eventing are truly the sports of kings. The pool of young riders is largely dictated by money.

New Zealand riders, on the other hand, are encouraged to push themselves to a point where they find jumping 2m-wide solid log fences exhilarating rather than terrifying.

With 15,000 pony-clubbers and 700 Equestrian Federation members, there is plenty of competition.

Equestrian Federation chief Cam McRae says: "When New Zealanders ride, they ride with plenty of guts - they attack the fences, especially on the cross-country course." And Scott says: "I remember Andrew telling us, 'When you get into trouble in a competition and the horse goes down on its knees you just have to give a Kiwi horse a kick in the guts and he'll get out of it. With European horses you have to be ready to bail out because they don't think for themselves."

Three-day eventing suits the New Zealand style. Eventing, a sort of triathlon on horseback, is the most exciting and challenging horse sport of all. It was invented by the British Army to test the horse and rider combination over the toughest series of challenges.

At three-star level the combination must execute a complicated dressage test demonstrating flexibility and control, trot and canter a 12km endurance course, gallop a 2.5km nine-hedge steeplechase, tackle a 6.5km cross-country course that includes 45 solid and fiendishly dangerous jumps, then demonstrate precision over a set of relatively fragile show jumps.

How hard is it? Very, says Scott. "In the cross-country you have to average speeds of 575m a minute - always communicating with the horse through leg pressure and hand pressure, telling him what he's about to jump, while maintaining your balance and the horse's balance."

The horse by no means does all the work. "They did some heart scores on us by strapping on monitors," Scott says. "It turned out that in the middle of a cross-country course we had heart rates equivalent to the All Blacks after a test.

"Everyone, except us, was shocked. A lot of people think that it's all the horse, that he's the athlete - and of course he is. But so is the rider. Eventing is very demanding on the body. If you put someone who didn't know how to ride on a horse and asked them to trot for half an hour, they'd be shattered."

It is also one of the only sports in the world where women and men can compete on the same level.

"There's absolutely no advantage in being male or female," says Scott,"Women have a bit of an advantage because they're kind, caring and loving and develop a relationship with the horse. In the end the horse will die for them.

"The men's advantage is that they're a little more demanding and aggressive. They have a bit more ability to pick a dithery horse up and say, 'C'mon, we're going."'

Scott often jokes that perhaps gays come somewhere between the two. He is probably right. Certainly at the top level of New Zealand riding, gay men are comparatively over-represented with Tait and his long-time partner and international rider Paul O'Brien, plus Jefferis, who jokingly refers to himself as "the queen of dressage."

All three bring to the sport the courage and bravery of the male plus the female characteristics of softness and empathy that makes a horse want to do its very best.

Before the Sydney Olympics, Jefferis said of his horse Bounce: "He's sexy, he's very spunky and if he was a boy he'd be the best-looking boy in the world. He loves me and I love him. We have a very good connection. We understand each other. He tries for me and I look after him. I never lie and ask him to do anything I know he can't do."

Gloucestershire-based Tait, aged 39, who has spent the past 10 years on the European eventing circuit, agrees that the lifestyle is demanding

Despite his tremendous fame and success, he still struggles to keep his horses on the circuit. "The costs are prohibitive. It costs $20,000 to transport a horse from England to the United States. You can spend a fortune. You can't go away and leave them.

"I still school horses myself every day. Sure, we're outdoors and get to travel." He smiles. "And I'm very pleased to have chosen to pursue this as a career."

Dan Jocelyn, aged 30, who manages a team of about 12 horses in Newbury, Berkshire, is typical of the up-and-comers. With his dark hair and wide smile Jocelyn, like Nicholson, is the typical Cooper-style hero, travelling abroad from March to October competing on his four New Zealand horses and others he rides for English owners twice a week, shortlisted for the Olympics. Hot on his heels are people like Bruce Haskell from Paraparaumu and Joe Meyer from Masterton.

For all the excitement it's a hard life - the battered faces of older riders are proof of that. There is the constant risk of injury which not even the back and shoulder protectors can stop, harsh weather, money worries, relentless stress, travel - much of it in a lumbering horse float or the belly of a jet where the horses travel - late nights, early mornings.

Todd lasted 20 years. Tait estimates he has another two, maybe four seasons left. And although he broke his leg badly last year and a metal rod was not removed until after the Olympics, he insists that, "I don't get scared of hurting myself. If you do then it's time to question why you're there.

"But I do worry about doing my best. I don't want to blow it. Without doubt the reason we all do the sport is because of the cross-country, getting that adrenalin and those nerves before you compete."

It was the expense plus the insecurity of the lifestyle that finally drove Scott back to Fielding to a 100ha farm not far from his parents. He and his wife, Louise, also a first-class rider, wanted children and the semblance of a private life. Now that the boys are 4 and 7, the Scotts train up-and-coming eventers, compete themselves, and hold clinics for riders throughout the country. .

Gradually, people like Scott are building an industry in horseflesh and New Zealand skills. "There are probably 50 people selling eventers and 300 professionals altogether," Scott says. "It's big business. Every night a freighter leaves for Sydney and once a year, around February, a jumbo takes about 100 to Europe."

The money is hard won. A novice fetches $20,000 to $50,000, an intermediate up to $125,000 and an advanced eventer as much as $200,000.

European riders use New Zealand as part of their training circuit. Twice a year one of Scott's clients, Markus Schimpel, flies first-class from Germany to ride Mitavite William Tell.

Although he has spent $350,000 on New Zealand horses, the German industrialist was well pleased with his 11th at Puhinui - just one place behind his instructor, who, with Mitavite Say What, has been long-listed for November's transtasman team and the 2002 World Championships in Barcelona.

As always, the thrill of the international circuit pulls eventers like a magnet. One of them, Bryce Newman - armed with what's left of $10,000 prizemoney from Puhinui, the proceeds of his Palmerston North business and hopefully some help from the Equestrian Federation - is packing up family and the brilliant Dunstan Inishturk and heading back to Europe via Kentucky.

Why? "Sometimes I wonder myself," the 33-year-old says. "But I've got a really good horse. It's the drive to ride internationally again. I've got the bug ... and I want to be sure I've given everything I've got to eventing."