Wow what a couple of months you have had – do you wake up pinching yourself to see if it is real?
“It’s been quite surreal actually. It has been a bit of an up-and-down year, but when I look back on it, I’ve had some amazing times. I’m just lucky to have a good team of horses, and some great supporters and owners behind me…”
When you looked at Nobilis – were you worried buying a horse from a rider as good as Michael Jung, or did you see something you could bring out in the horse…
“Nah, he’s not that good, he just has good horses.” He can’t keep a straight face any longer and has burst out laughing. “They were very upfront about the horse – I sat on him, and I liked the feeling he gave me, there was something about him that I really liked. He was always very difficult to train in the showjumping, but he is naturally careful. At Burghley some stupid reporter asked me, why did the horse not jump so well when he’s got a really good showjumping record – I said, isn’t it obvious? The day before he ran around the toughest Burghley in a long long time, in the worst conditions for a long time, and he was one of the fastest horses. It’s called the sport of three day eventing.”
Did you ever think for a second that you were going to blow it in the showjumping?
“It can happen so easily, of course that was running through my mind. I was quite nervous all morning because you have to showjump a tired horse at the end of a three-day. I thought if he has one down, that’s to be expected, I didn’t think we’d have four down. For me it was an odd feeling because I was disappointed to have four down, but I was elated because I was in the lead!”
“I spoke to Pippa Funnell the other day about when she won the Rolex Grand Slam, you can’t consciously say you are doing anything different, you are just having a good run, everyone gets a turn at it, and I guess the trick is to enjoy it.”
We seemed to be going for a while, for softer more technical cross country tracks but we’ve had two really tough cross country tracks in a month – Rio and Burghley – is this a trend you like?
“You saw it at the Olympics, and I think the feeling from the riders is that it is a good thing, good that no one was hurt. Certainly there was one too many ugly ditches, but overall I think it was good for our sport to make cross country the highlight. It has always been up-and-down. When I did Badminton in 2013, it was, in my opinion, very soft, and then the following year, when Giuseppe della Chiesa took over and Sam Griffiths won, the track was unrealistic, it was the toughest track the world has ever seen, and might ever see, and again, bad conditions.”
“At Burghley I thought it was a good track even if it was tough, then the rain comes and suddenly it becomes un-jumpable. It’s a tough old sport.”
Going around a track like that, what was your strategy to get to the other side?
“That was quite interesting. I woke up in the morning and I said to my wife, Rebecca, there are not many times when you wake up in the morning and you know you are riding a horse as good as Nobilis around Burghley, so I am going to enjoy that thought. It was fascinating – after I’d seen the trouble the Trout Hatchery caused, I was always going the long way, and it is unlike me to change my mind to go a fast way, I’ve often changed my mind to go a slow way, but he jumped in so well, and I was down on my minute markers, and I hate getting time faults, so I thought, oh hell, I might as well send him straight through, he is such a good horse, and he was phenomenal through there. That might have been the decision that let me win the event in the end, because it could have been ten seconds or so, time penalties.”
Looking back at Rio, did you ever imagine it could be like that? I don’t want to gush, but I thought you rode far away the most beautiful cross country round on Santano…
“Thanks Chris. I was very nervous. I was quietly confident, he’d given me such a good ride around Saumur, at his first three-star this year at Burnham Market, I thought – wow this is a three-star horse. He’s very strong, he can out-gallop most of them, which is unusual for his breeding. You know the one who really pushed him was our coach, Prue Barrett. The whole time she had a lot of positive things to say about him and she was very confident he could do it. When we got there and saw how tough the cross country course was, I said to her in all seriousness, why don’t I step down and we’ll let the reserve run – I think my green horse is out of his depth here. But it just goes to show, if they are a good horse, and they haven’t had too many problems in the past, they can answer the questions, and it was really fun for us.”
What will you do with him now Christopher, will you back off?
“Exactly, it was pretty amazing what we asked him to do and that he came through it and answered our questions so well. So we are certainly not going to go full steam ahead and use up all his generosity. He is a careful showjumper, he was just a bit empty on the last day at Rio, and had a few down – and inexperienced, cripes, he’d never seen a wall like that, and he had it down in the second round, just being a green horse. We are going to do some showjumping with him and over the winter we are going to make him stronger. Fit and fast is something he is naturally, so I think we’ll aim to do something with him at the end of next year, and hope we have some fun with him.”
Have you got something special to amaze us with next month at Pau four star?
“I’ve got a very special old Australian Thoroughbred – TS Jamaimo, so he’ll be astounding us all once again with his speed and his careful jumping… he’s a little Aussie battler.”
This month, the prize will be donated to Riding for the Disabled Victoria. They receive a 2kg bag of Livamol valued at $20.
A palatable blend of proteins, energy and polyunsaturated oil formulated to improve coat condition and general appearance of all stock, including stud and show animals. Livamol is especially appropriate for young, aged and convalescing animals recovering from disease or injury.
