Words by Suzy Jarratt and photos supplied by David Webster
Santana with Chris and Bek, and Jade Rudman who groomed at Rio…
When Chris gets on one of his brother’s horses he has no idea what to do.
As kids growing up in Toowoomba he and older brother Karl regularly rode at Brymaroo Pony Club. As they matured their equestrian interests went in two very different directions.
As the world now knows Christopher was drawn to eventing (he had thought about becoming a cabinet maker in his early days), whereas Karl chose to specialise in drafting and cutting. Today he and his wife, Felicity, run Diamond K Performance Horses at Jondaryan focussing on breeding, training, showing and selling quality stock for cow horse sports.
Both men are professionals but when they sit on each other’s top horses they feel like amateurs.
“We don’t know what to do,” said Chris. “It’s surprising how all the training basics are similar but how the end product’s so different. I’m always amazed at how ‘on the aids’ Karl’s horses are without being overly sensitive.”
Chris’ first EFA event was at the tender age of 13 on ‘Just Joshin’ in 1994. ‘Deo Juvante’ came next and together they rose up the eventing ladder.
“He took me from pony club to 4* and I really believe I owe most of it to him,” he stated in a UK online site. “He always got great dressage scores and beat everyone. He never had a rail down and was an incredible jumper for such a little blood horse. I never understood why people got time faults; if you needed to make up some time my horse simply speeded up. He went on to enjoy a career showjumping up to 1.40m with a young girl.”
As a young man he was a working pupil for Kevin McNab who he found to be inspirational; then later he refined his jumping technique with the ‘greatly influential’ George Sanna. That was when when he didn’t have to pay the rent by riding trackwork and ‘falling off racehorses in the dark’.
His early career sparkles with several highlights such a winning Adelaide 4* in 2008 with ‘Newsprint’.
He paid tribute to him earlier this year: “He was a very special horse who lost his life to liver disease. He’d been enjoying his retirement doing some lower level eventing with our friend, Gary Storer. ‘Barry’ played a very big part in my career and was, perhaps, the most incredible cross country horse I’ve ever sat on.”
Chris was to again win Adelaide in 2013 and major overseas events in Burghley, Saumur, Aachen and Luhmühlen.
And there were other times which were major disappointments.
“In 2004 I travelled to the UK with a Young Rider horse (Woodmount Spry) – I stayed with Sam Griffiths. The trip went pretty dismally – I competed at Badminton and I fell off; and the same happened at Burghley. I then returned home – I was determined to be an eventing rider out of Australia. I modelled my business on what the guys did in the UK in terms of finding owners and getting on the eventing scene.”
He finally moved to England in 2011 and has been based there ever since.
A year later he won the three star at Aachen. One of his great supporters was Marianne Lichtwark who, with Andrew Macpherson, co-owned ‘Underdiscussion’ which was campaigned by Chris. As he galloped to glory on the 14-year-old Hanoverian he blew a kiss to Marianne who was in the grandstand.
She later wrote: ‘seeing you and Underdiscussion flying through that finish line in Aachen was one of the sweetest moments of my life – if only Edgar could have been there’.
Edgar Lichtwark, a dressage and driving coach, had died 6 years earlier.
“Marianne was a great friend and taught me so much about riding and managing horses, sadly she died in 2014.”
Chris was to realise his Olympic dream when he and the mare ‘Leilani’ were selected for London in 2012. They placed 16th individually and the Australian team was sixth. “
’Leilani’ ended up being one of my better horses at that time. She wasn’t a stand out youngster but always tried hard and just improved and improved right up until she was 18.”
Owned by Jean and Jade Findlay of NSW she is now retired.
“In 2013 she flew back to Australia to be a brood mare,” explained Chris, who also flew home at the end of 2015 to marry his longtime partner, Rebekah Thompson, with whom he’d been sharing his life at their UK yard in Dunsfold, Surrey.
“We’d always known each other through the eventing scene but we met properly when Chris came to Australia to teach a clinic at Wallaby Hill. Before I knew it I’d moved to England,” recalled 29-year-old Rebekah who hails from Goulburn in NSW and studied law and resource and environmental management at the ANU.
They admit that the British weather does sometimes get them down.
“It’s hard to get motivated in winter,” admitted Rebekah, “and when it’s wet the horses have to stay in which means even the quiet ones breathe fire!”
A typical day at Dunsford is getting out of bed at 6 and having coffee.
“We deal with emails and discuss what we’re doing with the horses. Work in the yard begins at 7 which is when we leave the house, meet with the girls, we have a staff of three, and make a plan for the day. The horses are all fed and mucked out. Chris goes back into the house as he does a lot of stretching exercises and then begins riding around 8 am.
“On a normal day we try to have the horses ridden by the early afternoon, we then do yard jobs and Chris gives some lessons.
“During the eventing season we have a lot of extras to fit into the day such as galloping some of the horses and schooling them cross country. Most weeks we compete for two days during the season and, of course, for a CIC or a CCI event we’re away for nearly a week. Things get pretty hectic with a lot of early morning starts!”
So is there anything which upsets or frightens Chris about this gruelling, demanding sport?
“Over zealous stewarding really upsets me. When did it move from caring for the sport and the horses to bullying the riders? I wonder how many young ones have been turned off after being screamed at by a TD for something when a quiet word in the rider’s ear would have sufficed?”
As he becomes older would Christopher, like Rio team mate, Stuart Tinney, become involved in course building?
“It’s easy to be critical of course designers when you’re a rider but I don’t know if I’d be game enough to step into their shoes. I think the pressure they’re under is incredible and my hat goes off to these people who can test us and frighten us without causing harm to the horses.”
He also acknowledges many equestrians who he considers masters of their craft.
“I have a little crush on Tina Cook (a British eventing Olympian), and I could watch Ingrid Klimke ride all day. She’s who I think of when I try to smarten my position on the flat. And over jumps I love Marcus Ehning.”
And it goes without saying Chris is very fond of a gutsy 9-year-old Hanoverian owned by the Black Run Syndicate. As he recently posted on his Facebook:
We did it!! Team Bronze in the bag. A huge thank you to everyone who made it possible, especially the owners and our groom, Jade. The biggest thank you goes to Santano ‘Santa’. This time two years ago, he was doing his first 1*. He climbed a mountain to get to the Olympics and then he climbed another mountain while here! One of three horses inside the time cross country… Not bad for a little dressage pony!!
Santano with a couple of his owners, Jill Martin and David Webster (Richard Simm, Becky Campbell and the other members of the Black Run Syndicate are absent), and groom Jade Rudman
Back in early 2016 Chris was in Surrey being interviewed for an equestrian magazine – the weather was freezing and it had been raining for days.
He said to the journalist: “on a cold, wet day like today I sometimes ask myself ‘what exactly is it that you’re doing, Burto?’”
We all know the answer – he is showing the world he is one of the masters of three day eventing.