Story by Christopher Hector and photos by Roslyn Neave
Australia’s International Three Day Event, known to its friends as Adelaide Four-Star, is truly one of the world’s great events.
With its perfect setting in the parklands abutting the city, it has an insouciant charm all of its own, and when Adelaide turns on perfect weather, (that’s for us spectators, the riders and horses copped a bit of the fiery furnace treatment as the settled in, in the days before the competition) what could be nicer than sitting on the terrace of the marvelously restored Victorian grandstand, watching the dressage as the event unfolds?
Maybe I should re-phrase that, since the setting was superb, the dressage…? It was hard to find a horse in a correct outline, reaching forward to the contact, rippling over the back, free and forward and in balance, and now that the world’s dressage judges have seen what ‘Michi’ Jung can do, they are not prepared to put up with horses that are short in front, jacked up and restricted in their movement.
Bates saddle vouchers valued at $4995 went to all class winners, and there was a Horseland gift card for the CCI2* winner for Horseland sponsored rider, Amanda Ross with Diesel, going into the lake.
Another Bates saddle for Shane Rose, pictured with Virgil
At Taupo 3DE, back in May, we were treated to two scintillating tests from the big greys: Shane Rose’s CP Qualified and Clarke Johnstone’s Balmoral Sensation. They came out and owned the arena, hey look at this, this is special, and were duly awarded sub-40 scores. At Adelaide, they both just looked a bit flat and paid the penalty.
Shane and ‘Darcy’ finished first on a score of 42.1, while Clarke finished in 5th with a 50.1.
Shane and Darcy – leaders after the dressage
Really the only combination to show a bit of pizzazz and style was the second placed Katja Weimann and BP Flamboyant. While most of the time the three judges, Britain’s Sandy Phillips, American Wayne Quaries and German Martin Plewa, were in synch, they got a little spread on Katja, with Ms Phillips scoring them on 70.67, while the other two had them on 65.
Truly if we are to be competitive in Rio next year, work on the dressage is essential, and whatever we have been doing, does not seem to be working, with the exception of Katja who really has made a great leap forward this year.
Katja and Flamboyant show a bit of style
Sonja Johnson had a test she would prefer to forget with Parkiarrup Illicit Liaison (although an overreach severely limited their prep for Adelaide) and was still looking to haul her way up the leaderboard on the cross. She thought anyone taking the track lightly was making a mistake:
“I’ve jumped a number of Mike’s tracks and I know that everything out there, is there for a reason, and if you take anything cheaply, it will get you. It starts with fence four, a really big oxer that takes some jumping and then you’ve got to land and turn on four strides to a little skinny, but big apex – and that is a recurring theme, the beginning of a technical line is a big fence that takes jumping, so you can’t be protective to the first bit. You’ve got to have real ride-ability, open them up, jump a big fence then softly go whoa and turn. That is the theme right through to the end of the track. Anyone who has a horse that is not fit is going to be in real trouble because there are still some really big fences at the end.”
Always fast – Sonja Johnson and Illicit Liaison / Photo: Julie Wilson
You were impressed with the work that has been done on the going?
“Bless him! I hope someone has told Mike recently how wonderful he is. The olive grove has always been one of my dreads coming to this event. I was just out walking the two-star, and there was Mike spreading sand through all the gallop tracks. It actually feels quite nice to walk on now, he has aerated it, put sand on it, the thing about this man is that he looks after our horses, and as a rider, I can’t thank him enough.”
Basking the glow of all this love, MES wasn’t making any great claims for this year’s track. The fact that the base in the water had fallen in a heap, didn’t make his task any easier…
“The course and the route here is pretty established and pretty limited, there is not a huge amount of flexibility. It’s ten years or so since I was last here, and not a huge amount has changed – the trees have got bigger.”
Mike Etherington-Smith
And someone wrecked your surface in the water?
“Yeah. What was in the lake has gone! We were pretty limited with what could do there, that was frustrating, but we have been talking about how we can get that back where we’d all like it to be. It’s very much in the early stages. I’ve been asked to do this for three years and this is year one of a three year plan to come up with a few new fences and put a bit of size into it. We have to work within a budget, it’s no different to anywhere, we do what we can with the budget.”
Sonja said that she thought your course was tougher than what people were giving it credit for…
“Adelaide is a unique venue and you have to bear in mind the mental effect of running through city parks, running through trees and then suddenly bursting out into an open area, and it’s in those areas that you have the combinations because it is quite limiting what you can do, where. This track is not the most difficult track in the world, but we have tried to use what we have got, introduce some new fences, and make the riders ride – they still have to pay attention, there’s quite a lot to ride out there. As we get to the high levels, somehow you have to separate out those that are having a good day from those that are having not such a good day. My general philosophy is that if the rider makes a mistake, you don’t want the horse to be hurt as a result of that, you want simple, innocent run offs. We all hate horses falling.”
Wearing your Aussie team advisor / selector hat – those dressage tests didn’t answer a lot of the questions… there weren’t a lot saying ‘here I am, take me to Rio.’
“It’s a bit of a way out, I’m seeing a lot of these guys for the first time so I haven’t got context, I don’t know if they are on the way up, they’ve plateaued or are on the way down. When I’ve seen two or three tests, I can bench mark them. What we do know is that the standard is now so high that you have to be good in all three phases. One of the big challenges for us as selectors is that we have a bunch of guys in the UK, a bunch of guys over here, and trying to compare them, we have different calendars, different conditions, different events, that gives us a bit of a headache. If everyone was in the same place, life would be easy – but it is one of the attractions actually, not having everyone in the same place, it’s great that there are a bunch of people down here doing well, riders with the skill to go forward, then it just gets down to horsepower. I’m already grey, I guess the next step is that I go bald.”
“Then we have to look at what happens on the final day, showjumping is just so important now. The conversations we’ve been having with Prue (Barrett) and with the riders, it’s you’ve got to get your act together boys on this jumping lark! There’s not much lead-in-time between now and Rio, and you have to focus on your weak points, we cannot afford to be knocking down fences in the showjumping. Look at the Germans, they are primarily sub-40 dressage, they are clear and pretty much under time cross country, and they jump clear rounds. The rest of the world is way behind the Germans at the moment, and I can see German domination going on for another three, four, five years.”
“They’ve got this program in place, they’ve been very quietly doing it, and it is going to take us four or five years to catch up. Their program is brilliant, it extends to coaching the coaches, so the message from right through their development squads and their pathway programs, is consistent and it is producing results. You’ve got to coach the coaches, you’ve got to have these pathway programs and development opportunities. There is a lot in the mix, but it is all part of the plan. I’m lucky enough to be a selector through to Rio, what happens after then – who knows?”
“The focus is to help in whatever way I can to get the best performance out of Australia. Essentially I’m a selector, not the program maker, I’m not there to tell the riders how to ride their horses – sometimes they come and ask me, which is quite scary. It’s a great privilege to be asked to do it, but we want as many people to select from as we can, on sound horses that are peaking mentally and physically, at the right time.”
Clarke Johnstone and Balmoral Sensation
Isabel English and Feldale Mouse
Shane Rose and CP Qualified
Christine Bates and Adelaide Hill
Adelaide turned on its very finest weather for a wonderful day of cross country, and once again, MES proved what a magician he is, creating lots of problems, without any hurt horses, really the only ugly moment was the Victorian entry of Yona Lloyd on the unfortunate Sergeant Crisp, put wrong to fence after fence and gamely struggling on. The ground jury should have put a stop to it.
Right now, Shane Rose is on a magic roll. His horses never look fast, they certainly don’t stretch and gallop like those beautiful Thoroughbreds, but despite appearances, they are fast, very fast, and it helps that Shane puts them in all the right places so they never waste a stride. On Qualified, he was home with the third fastest time – 3.2 – after a very wobbly approach to the first fence. Sonja Johnson fair flew, home with 1.2 time on Parkiarrup Illicit Liaison, while Shane’s other ride, Virgil was the only horse to come off the cross country without a single penalty.
Qualified was imported to Australia as a showjumping stallion, and he was certainly well bred for the job, being by Quite Capitol who is by French supersire, Quidam de Revel out of a full-sister to the great Holsteiner, Capitol, and out of a Corofino mare, trouble was he just didn’t care if he knocked rails down. He came to Shane to be sold, and the combination just clicked…
Stuart Tinney and Pluto Mio
Michaela Martindale and Kinnordy Gatow
Virgil is by the great Vivant who carries 56% Thoroughbred blood, out of a very slow racehorse, North Pole, and he looks anything but fast, but he is one of the tallest horses on the scene and has an incredible length of stride.
New Zealander, Clarke Johnstone had a fast clear run on Balmoral Sensation, home with just 4 time to slot into third going into the showjumping. Balmoral Sensation is by the Dutch stallion, Senator VDL, who is by a son of Cor de la Bryère out of a daughter of Voltaire – that’s 49.8% blood, and out of a mare by the wonderful eventing sire, and Thoroughbred, Aberlou.
They go into the showjumping just in front of Sonja and her Paint – okay I know he is really a Thoroughbred and raced as Bullionaire, I just like to wind her up. Illicit Liaison actually had one start as a two year old and came tenth out of eleven horses in a two-year-old race and was immediately retired.
Katja Weimann and BP Flamboyant
Katja Weimann’s BP Flamboyant, who looked so special in the dressage, was home clear, with 11.2 time, and the pair was fifth going into the showjumping. Katja’s horse was specifically bred (by Katja!) for eventing, being by her Hanoverian stallion, Triathlete (aka Remi West Side Story) out of Margot’s Glance, the dam of BP Gallantry (by Gypsy Kingdom, out of Catch The Eye) who was the foundation of Katja’s breeding program.
Megan Jones and Kirby Park Allofasudden
One interested observer who liked the quality of the horse flesh he saw, was three time gold medal coach, Wayne Roycroft:
“The horses I saw in the two star trot up, there were three or four and I’d take any of them. I love the Thoroughbred, and Chris Burton is proving you can still do it with a Thoroughbred, but it doesn’t mean you can’t have a wonderful Warmblood – the Irish bred horses have been very good too. They need to be athletic, they need to be able to gallop at least 1000 metres a minute and for some distance. They also need to be manageable now more than ever because of the intensity of the courses – you can’t gallop at 700 metres a minute to most of the fences, they have got to be able to come back and get the right pace for the fence. You don’t get any minute long gallops so where you have half a minute, you’ve got to sprint, you’ve got to go faster than we ever rode, almost what we rode on the steeplechase. It is a fallacy to say the horses don’t have to be as fit as they were, but probably a different fitness. If I was doing it now, I’d certainly do the leg work, I’d certainly do the hill work, but I’d be doing much more sprint work, train them like a polocrosse or polo pony, they have to gallop flat out and come back then gallop again. That puts a lot of pressure on the horses and their fitness.”
“I thought here, I was totally disappointed with the dressage, it was not up to standard, and I am not sure why, whether it was atmosphere or whatever, but something has gone wrong there. I thought there was some nice riding on the cross country, and there will undoubtedly be some good riding in the showjumping today.”
“I think the course here at Adelaide was perfect for what we had here, it didn’t need to be any tougher. Technically it was quite hard, the spreads were up to standard, just the heights were a little lower. Mike does an absolutely brilliant job, he sorted them out without making any bad injuries and that’s all you want. I still think the guys are well and truly on track, I think if they can get those top riders mounted at the right time, they will medal in Rio.”
Sunday was another glorious day, and this year’s program was enriched with a World Cup Showjumping class, won in grand style by Queenslander, Merrick Ubank on Alantinus (Alimo / Argentinus).
Shane Rose duly proved just how much of a roll he is on (as Wayne Roycroft remarked to me, there are times when a rider is just unbeatable) with a clear on Virgil, to finish second, behind Shane again on Qualified, who had a single pole but still finished first. Clarke Johnstone was also clear, to go third on Sensation, while Sonja and Illicit Liaison left them all up to finish fourth. Young Western Australia rider, Michaela Martindale on Kinnordy Gatow was also clear, to finish fifth at her first four star event, while Katja and Flamboyant dropped three to slip into sixth place.
I’ve been to almost all the Adelaide four stars, but this was the starriest one of them all, slick production, a fabulous look and just that certain buzz that says, this is Australia’s showcase equestrian event. Long may it flourish.
1st and 2nd, and now 5th on the World rankings / Photo: Julie Wilson
