By DAVID LEGGAT
When Daniel Meech won his third major grand prix showjumping title in Kuala Lumpur a few days ago, he was delighted - but not for the obvious reasons.
Sure, there was the satisfaction of adding to the events he won at Munich six years ago and Paris last year. And outclassing a cluster of world and Olympic champions in one of only four five-star events on the calender this year didn't hurt either.
Throw in the winner's cheque of about $154,000, even though most of it went to his sponsor, and he had good cause for reaching for the champagne bottle.
But chief among the Hawkes Bay 30-year-old's reasons for quiet delight was that it helped bury a painful memory from the Olympic Games in Athens in August.
Then, only centimetres stood between Meech and a first Olympic showjumping medal for New Zealand. Perhaps even the gold.
Instead Meech and his 10-year-old bay stallion Diagonal, third going into the final round after a memorable clear penultimate round, tipped over three rails and finished 13th, struggling in the draining heat.
One rail down would have given him gold, two down and he probably would still have taken the bronze.
It was still New Zealand's best showjumping result at the Games. But Meech found his emotions about that final round shifting, and the end result sat like a burr under his saddle.
"In the short term I didn't think much about how close I was to a medal," he said on a short holiday home from his German base this week.
"Thirteenth was a fantastic result for New Zealand. But I started to go over and over in my head what I could have done and it got more and more disappointing.
"That's why in Kuala Lumpur I was very determined to win. It takes away some of the disappointment of Athens."
Meech knows he had the chance in Athens, with New Zealand watching, to make the jumping world sit up, and show that the country had equestrian talent in something other than three-day eventing.
"No one else gave me a show of winning a medal, but I knew the horse had potential and I knew that I had potential."
In Malaysia, 11 riders made the jumpoff. Four then had clear rounds and Meech, with a time of 39.83s, prevailed by a shade under 2s over Frenchman Jean-Marc Nicholas.
He's come a long way from the youngster who charged about at pony club competitions in and around Hastings in the late 1980s.
Meech, whose mother, father and grandfather were all nationally ranked showjumpers, won the national young rider and New Zealand titles and rode in the Nations Cup before fixing his eyes on Europe.
On arriving there in 1995 he found it wasn't all trophies and bubbly, and he admits that at times he wondered if he had set his ambitions too high.
After the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, when he rode Future Vision, he had a period of scratching around without making much money or progress, so he contacted German jumping legend Paul Schockemohle who gave him a job.
"I had two years there. It was the best thing I ever did for my career."
Meech now works for Hans-Juergen Klaas, Diagonal's owner, in Westfalen province near the Dutch border.
He is now known to be among the leading jumpers. Not that you would guess it from a glance at the world rankings. At the start of the last European season, he was in the 80s, but when Diagonal got injured he missed events and his ranking slipped.
He is now around 130, but his Malaysian victory should put him back inside the top 100.
Meech says the ranking system is not ideal. A rider with access to a pool of good-calibre horses can line up most weekends and accrue points.
Meech works mainly with Diagonal, and can't compete every weekend or the horse would burn out.
Meech knows his best years lie ahead. Which brings us to Beijing and Diagonal in four years.
Meech prefers to hedge his bets on whether he will take his classy jumper to the next Games.
"I would like to find another horse, which could cope a bit better in the heat, but to find one who is better jumping-wise will be difficult."
Meech's immediate focus is on the world championships in Aachen, Germany, in 2006.
He has no doubts Diagonal's credentials are strong, and the heat won't be the factor it was in Athens.
Daniel Meech
* Born: November 19, 1973, Hastings
* Educated: Lindisfarne College and Hastings Boys High School
* First senior showjumping title: World Cup qualifying grand prix, Pukekohe, 1994 riding Remington Auto
* Olympics: Atlanta 1996, Athens 2004
Showjumping: Big win soothes Olympics agony
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