PAU – A charm of its own…

Story by Christopher Hector and Photos by Roz Neave & Eric Knoll

Coming so soon after the Games, this year’s Pau was never going to be a vintage crop. Of the Germans, only Michael Jung has sufficient four-star power to make the trip with not one, but two of his… and some of the mainstays of previous years like William Fox-Pitt and Andrew Nicholson seem to be slowly fading from the scene, so both the British and Kiwi contingents are a little second hand. Australia is to be represented by two – Sonja Johnson and Parkiarrup Illicit Liaison and Christopher Burton and Jamaimo – first to go in the four-star…

The seventeen-year-old bay gelding reminds us once again, how lucky we are to have such a large Thoroughbred industry in Australia. Jamaimo was born at Emirates Park, by the Irish stallion, Urgent Request, out of an imported British mare by Bustino. Christened Hurried Plea, the horse does not seem to have had a race start, before he came to Will Enzinger to event, and thence to Christopher.

The trot work is really impressive, but once Christopher starts asking for those ever-so-exciting flying changes, the act falls apart – they finish on a score of 60.3 and Jamaimo’s chances of retiring in a blaze of glory would seem to be blown.

At least half of Christopher’s test looked respectable, but they are followed by a series of tests, so badly ridden that you wonder how on earth the combinations ever made it through to four-star! The poor horses are not helped by riders with pram hands bouncing up and down, thanks to locked elbows, and tight arses as they bounce away in the middle of the poor creature’s back. A month or two of lunge sessions would seem in order for most of them.

Christopher Burton and TS Jamaimo – looking great in the trot work, then…

The ground jury of American Wayne Quarles, Denmark’s Christina Klingspor and France’s Alain James is having its own little melt down. They just cannot agree on what is, or is not, a late change, and the scores range from 4 to 6.5 for the same movement while the individual judges swing from missing late ones, to penalizing clean ones. Go figure.

In amongst the awful tests, there are some nice ones. British veteran, Tina Cook looks stylish on Calvino II (Carousel / Rock King) branded Anglo European, and an interesting mix. The sire, Carousel, is straight Holsteiner, by Caretino, while the dam is a Thoroughbred (although with one dodgy Non Stud Book line on the bottom) by that prolific sire of eventers Just a Monarch. At last some elegantly effective riding… 48.8, although she finishes the day in first place on the American judge’s card.

 

Laura Collett’s handsome Hanoverian, Pamero is by Eva Bitter’s showjumping star, Perigueux and out of a mare with more solid showjumping blood: by the Ramiro son, Rituel, out of a mare by Don Carlos. Finally the progressive score gets below 40, but only briefly, some tortured counter canter and they end on 45.9 to briefly take the lead.

It is drizzling rain as Michael Jung enters the arena on a fischerRocana FST (by the Thoroughbred, Ituango out of an Oldenburg mare of solid jumping breeding – by Carismo, a grand-son of Cor de la Bryère out of a grand-daughter of Sandro). fischerRocana has decided to test Michi’s magical powers, she is against the bit for most of the test, but the magician is not to be denied. They get the job done to take the lead on 43.8, but it is perhaps not a test that will feature on Michael’s ‘best of’ compilation.

Michael Jung and fischerRocana – the mare was a little on the muscle

By now the rain has started in earnest and I have interviews in the press tent with the dynamic duo of the French eventing team, Michel Asseray and Thierry Touzaint. I don’t think I missed much.

The tests on the second day look significantly better than the first. Sonja’s Illicit Liaison is a bright, forward sort of chap, but alas Sonja is one of the bouncing hands brigade and the Thoroughbred gelding (Made of Gold xx / Luskin Star xx) looks a bit short and tight in front. The canter work is better, even the judges can agree that the changes are clean, and they finish on 50.5, just out of the top ten at this stage.

Michael Jung re-appears on the horse he had originally targeted for Rio, fischerTakinou, and another with interesting breeding. He is by Jaguar Mail who is three quarters Thoroughbred, by the American Thoroughbred, Hand in Glove, out of a mare by the Thoroughbred Grand Prix showjumper, Laudanum, out of a mare by Almé out of a Gotthard mare. Takinou is out of an Anglo Arab mare, line bred (three crosses) to the great Nithard aa.

Michael Jung and fischerTakinou – so soft, so sweet

Out the back the amiable looking chestnut is working in sweetly and you see just how subtle Michael’s riding is, when he goes into a corner on the short side, taking a couple of stronger than usual half halts, then comes dancing across the diagonal in a floating extended trot. Still it takes until they finish their trot work in the arena for them to grab the lead and they finish the day with the only sub 40 score – 39.3.

Second to the British farrier, Alexander Bragg riding the Dutch bred, Zagreb. By Perion, a grandson of Furioso II out of a mare of Lucky Boy xx breeding, with another cross of Furioso II on the dam line through Voltaire.

Michael is sitting in fourth on fischerRocana so we think this one of the few four-stars to elude the master is on its way to the Jung mantelpiece.

It is a lovely sunny day for the cross-country. I asked Andrew Hoy, who had a multinational team of pupils at the event, how he thought it would ride: “I think with going up-and-down the mounds, it is going to be very difficult to get the time. I think Pierre Michelet is very clever in the way he designs the course, the first four jumping efforts come very quickly then you have a gallop down to fence four, then into the water – but in the water and all the way out, is not so fast, until you get onto the racetrack and by the time you get there you have done four hills with jumping efforts, some of them multiple, and that is just going to take time. To do the first two minutes on the clock, I think you are going to have to be very clever.”

Clever or brave or both?

“The days of being just brave, have gone, because those riders normally go in the first five or six jumping efforts.”

It was interesting talking to the two chiefs of the French eventing team, Michel Asserey and Thierry Touzaint, they regard Pierre Michelet as one of their team, working with them to prepare the French combinations for the challenges they will meet – they sit down at the beginning of the season, the three of them, and talk about what the riders will need to encounter that season… I can’t think of any other country that has a system like this…

“I think you are right, I don’t think it does exist in any other country, and I think it worked very well for them in Rio. The French performed very well in Rio and I don’t want to take anything away from them, if you look at the stats, if you finish on your dressage score, you are guaranteed to win a medal. We all say how wonderful Michi Jung is, and he is very successful, but he has been consistent – once he produces his dressage test, regardless of where he is placed, he finishes on that, and if you finish on your dressage score you are going to win, or come second or third.

The Pyrenees, they rise up on the horizon around every corner…

Christopher Bartle who is helping Michael Jung, and some of his private British students, is another who knows well what to expect when you come to the four-star in France’s South West:

“One comes to Pau expecting a Pierre Michelet track and it definitely has his stamp on it. It is quite intense, and in that respect, it is a proper four-star track. There are quite a few fences you could underestimate, they appear to be simple fences, but you have got to be in good balance and sitting well, and the time will be difficult to get – and if you are trying to get the time you’ve got to balance that up against having a horse that is fresh enough for the quite tough questions at the end.”

Do we think Pierre Michelet courses are a good thing, or a bad thing?

“Art is about variety and he adds his stamp to cross-country course designing. I’m not saying he is better or worse than any other four-star designers – he has his own particular character. It’s very much about balance and rideability, as you know, I talk a lot about the relationship between the dressage training and the cross-country, they are not the big imposing fences that you sometimes see at Badminton or Burghley in size terms, but the technicality of riding them is real challenge. We all know the French style of riding is very forward, very committed, very positive, and you have to take that into consideration when you ride a course of his.”

Chris Burton and Jamaimo – the Australian Thoroughbred conquers one of Europe’s toughest courses

First to go, Christopher Burton and TS Jamaimo, and the seventeen-year-old Thoroughbred makes it look easy: easy if you are fast, brave and love to go cross-country, and you have one of the most quietly effective cross country riders in the universe on your back. Clear no time.

“It was fun, the dear old thing is super, he’s tough, he’s amazing. We were held back this year because we had a stifle injury, but he came through it, he’s very very tough…. brilliant.”

Pity he had the brain fade in the dressage when you asked for the flying change…

“It was amazing. He’s never blown up like that on me before. He got lit up by the big screen, and because he is getting a bit old and stiff behind, I made the mistake of backing off him, because he hasn’t been hot in the arena all year, and I wanted to keep him strong behind and sound. I’d under-done him, he thought it was cross-country day.”

Is he going to keep on going?

“We’ll see how he pulls up, talk it over with the owners, but I think if you asked him, he’d say, age is just a number, I think he wants to keep going. We’ll see how he comes back next year, we’ll take it day by day – but what a lovely old horse.”

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So the course is easy? Well no, the next two fail to finish, and we have to wait for another eleven rides before the course is conquered again – this time by Michael Jung and fischerRocana, the mare just eating up the track, home with just 0.4 time. At the end of the day, there are just two combinations home clear, within the time. Two retire on cross country and seven are eliminated.

After her fall at Burghley, it was great to see Sonja Johnson back in form, and her super little chestnut, Parkiarrup Illicit Liaison starring over the cross-country track. Home with just 5.2 time.

“Hello – what are you doing here?”

I could ask the same, what are you doing here?

Learning.

Sonja Johnson and Parkiarrup Illicit Liaison – when will Sonja’s run of bad luck end?

What are you learning?

“I cannot tell you how much I have learnt. In all honesty, falling off at Burghley was the best thing that could have happned to me because it gave me another six weeks to be here. I’ve been training with Bettina Hoy, Andrew Fletcher, Grant Wilson. I’ve just had this amazing learning opportunity.”
“The mistake I made at Burghley was really stupid. I stopped believing in myself, and riding MY horse. I’m watching all these best people in the world and they are all going through that fence dead straight, four. I thought, I must be an idiot, I think that’s a curve five. I’m riding Ben, on mud that he doesn’t know, and they talk about a six to eight week period after they arrive where they hit what Dan Jocelyn described as ‘delayed jet lag’. And that was bang on eight weeks.”

“In hindsight, I now register how amazing he was to do as good a job as he did cross-country – he didn’t fall, I fell off and it was my fault because I didn’t ride my horse. I learnt a lot from that.”

Kristina Cook and Calvino II – the veteran Brit brought two horses to Pau, and they both looked class acts, but Kristina needed all her skill and experience through the water

“Then we went to Blenheim which was a hell of a lot easier than Burghley. You look at Burghley on the television, and you cannot understand what the terrain does to those fences, and they are so clever with their roping. They use their roping to make things so much more difficult than they are at home, where we can just start galloping to the fence and wing round the corner. For example the Lake at Burghley, you gallop up a long hill, sticky mud, turn near 90 degrees, gallop through some trees, turn left, gallop through some more trees and I doubt you’ve got eight strides straight to your fence. This is a whole new riding technique that I need to perfect.”

“Then I got to go to Blenheim to practice over a slightly softer course and Ben being Ben, is still being a man and saying, It’s alright I can do this! I was unbelievably sick myself at Blenheim. I think after showjumping, they very nearly didn’t let me go cross-country because I came out of showjumping unable to breathe. The silly stop we had there, I put down to the fact that he never grabbed the bit and dragged me around that track, which is what he always does.”

Karim Florent Laghoua and Punch de L’Esques rounded out the top ten final placings

“We gave him a week off, and then a really light week, and Bettina and I did a lot of talking. She really helped me on so many levels. She helped mentally, hey Sonja would you try to remember that you have done a little bit – you did finish tenth individually at the Beijing Games. I’d forgotten all that.”

“So I can’t tell you how much I’ve learnt, how many ideas I’ve got to take back to WA. I’ve already got meetings organized when I get home to try and get a lot of this stuff into place, so, I’m actually, in a way, pleased I fell off at Burghley.”

Karin Donckers and Fletcha van’t Verahof – bred by one of the world’s great showjumping breeders, Joris de Bradander

Maxime Livio and Qalao des Mers, along with Christopher and Jamaimo, were clear with no time. Maxime’s horse is the cross that seems to be emerging as the magic mix for eventing: the power and the jumping ability of the Selle Français, combined with the speed and the toughness of the Anglo Arab.

He is by Ioliso de Quinhon – a grandson of Jalisco out of a Double Espoir mare. He is out of a mare that is three quarters Anglo Arab. It was a wonderful cross country round, although Maxime confessed that it was a bit of a fight at the beginning before the horse settled down. “He is very fast, he is courageous, I am proud of him.”

Maximo Livio and Qalao des Mers – this horse is just a jumping machine

fisherTakinou may have been Michi’s dressage star, but he is bested on cross-country day by the mare, fisherRocana, who came into her own – she picked up 0.4 time, while the gelding added 8.8, to leave Rocana on top of the leaderboard.

Michael Jung and fischerTakinou – the nine year old gelding looking good but needing the run after his time off

Michael Jung and fischerRocana – a tough little jumping machine

It’s a study in contrasts, as Michael rides his mare cross-country, sitting so quietly, his hands never moving from the nice spot above the wither, meeting every fence in a balance and rhythm – at the same time, Boyd Martin is riding Cracker Jack, scraping through the fences, stumbling on landing, his hands wide like he’s riding a motor bike, which, come to think of it, is what it looks like. Clear in the fast time of 2 penalties, but are we surprised when the horse is spun the next morning?

Alexander Bragg and Zagreb, up there after the dressage, they finished in fifth and looked a bit rough through the water

The British rider, Nicola Wilson moved up into third on her lovely Irish bred, One Two Many, although as is so often the case of late, Irish is 50% Holstein. The bay gelding is by the Holsteiner stallion, Chacoa (Contender / Landgraf) out of a mare that is as Irish as boiled spuds – Colin Diamond (a grandson of King of Diamonds) out of a Clover Hill mare.

Nicola Wilson and One Two Many – fourth and stylish

Next morning poor Sonja fails to present – Illicit Liaison has studded himself and is very sore…

Christopher Burton and Jamaimo conquer the showjumping course in grand style – as I remark to him later, you’ve won two out of three – unfortunately that orangoutang dressage means that even with one of only seven showjumping clears (out of 35 attempts), they can only finish in 11th place, but still get a bow to take home.

Chris Burton and Jamaimo

All through the competition it has had the feeling of a Greek drama, moving irrevocably in the direction of a Michael Jung win, the only real question being, on the mare or on the gelding? The great thing about eventing is that it is not like that. Maxime Livio (who somewhat blotted his copybook at the WEG in Caen when Qalao des Mers tested positive to ACE, which lost the French their qualification for Rio, and involved a six month’s suspension for Maxime) has an amazing jumping machine in Qalao des Mers, he followed up his clear cross-country with a brilliant clear in the showjumping, while Magical Michi proved even he has a day off, two down with fischerRocana to finish third, and one down with fischerTakinou to go into second place.

Maxime Livio and Qalao des Mers

Nicola Wilson’s lovely One Two Many had two rails but still finished in fourth, just in front of the galloping farrier, Alexander Bragg and Zagreb.

It seems Pau is somewhat of a hoodoo event for Michael Jung. I asked him, had he ever gone into the showjumping in a 4* leading, and not won? Michael was wracking his brain, and the organizer answered for him – here, last year at Pau! (It turns out that it also happened in Badminton in 2013, when Jock Paget and Clifton Promise grabbed the lead over the coloured poles).

It is not called Etoiles de Pau, Stars of Pau, for nothing. It is one of the world’s great three day events, with a Gallic charm all of its own, add it to your wish list…

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BABETTE SCHILY
PAU FROM A TO Z

Every now and then, the stars align, and when you get to the horse show, you find the perfect minder. At Pau, Babette Schily is my guardian angel. Babette has been with the event since the start, as an organizer, and now she works for the local chamber of commerce, promoting the cluster of equestrian industries of the South/West.

“I was involved with Pau from 1991 to 2001, when we got the first European Championships. The event started in 1990, because of the dreams of one man – James Chandaoe . He was the Mayor of the town of Lons at that time, a little neighbour town of Pau. James Chandaoe had two sons who had competed in the European Junior Championships in Eventing. They had a private trainer, they had their own horses, they were very keen. James remembered the time when Pau hosted an international jumping show on the Place de Verdun, a huge space in the town. All the great names came, d’Oriola, Pessoa, and he kept that memory, and he had the dream: one day I will organize an international competition at Pau, it has to come back.”

“That’s what he did in 1990, then it was a CI-A, where you have the right to invite three nations. He invited Spain, because they were neighbours, and there was a Danish rider coming over. He launched this idea, with his own little team of organizers from the Mayor’s office, and very quickly he was aware that it was too big for him alone.”

“The town of Pau lent him the equestrian centre, the Domaine de Sers, it existed already as a training centre, an arena for dressage and jumping, it was a very nice site, but a lot of work. So he went looking for a professional partner to be in charge of the organization. That was in 91 and at the time I was working with Pascal Sayous, who is still in charge of the event today. We applied for the job and got it, because we were riders ourselves, we were networking at the weekends, riding ourselves and we knew the riders. So we were in the job and there was a group of very loyal people who helped our company organize the event. I was a member of this team for ten years, until 2001 when we ran the European Championships.”

“It started off as a one-star, then a two-star, it progressed step-by-step, but it was not easy because Pau was always at the end of the season. Pau is a long way from the UK where most of the professional riders are based – they have to go across the channel, and then right down through France. To attract them we offered special initiatives, free stables, a nice party for the riders and a good atmosphere. We have a nice climate here in October and people like to come here because it is still not too cold, there’s good food, good wine…”

“Back in 94, Mark Todd and Andrew Nicholson came down, and we put a lot of effort into hosting them and they were really really kind, they loved the event here, and they gave us a lot of back up and a lot of promotion. They brought other riders to our event, and the owners, and all the network around them, they were really perfect ambassadors to promote our event.”

“One problem we had at the beginning was to cooperate with the racehorse trainers who are based here. This is a training centre, and they are working and training every morning, including the weekends. At the beginning they were, oh oh what are all these event horses doing in our area, riders coming on our tracks. It needed a lot of communication to establish the links, it took quite a time to get the racehorses trainers with a positive attitude to this event.”

“At that time we had the three phases in the cross country: roads and tracks, steeplechase, roads and tracks, cross country. It required a lot of volunteers, but what was great here was we had a super collaboration with the racecourse, and we had the steeplechase on real steeplechase fences. I remember Andrew Nicholson coming back from his course walk, going WOW, a real steeplechase on a racecourse, that is just great – we love that! But it was hard to organize, you needed a lot of volunteers, a lot of infra-structure but it was good because we had everything nearby, the racecourse, the equestrian centre, five minutes from the airport, very close to the town centre, so it is much easier to come here than go to Badminton and Burghley which are out in the middle of no-where.”

“Step by step, people became aware of the quality of the event, and we attracted more and more very good riders who spread the news, you have to go to Pau, it’s got a good atmosphere, good track, good ground, good organization. It was a long journey, but now we are 26 years old and the event gets bigger and bigger. It is the only four-star in France now and we are very proud of that. Our region is very proud to have this showcase, it is very important for the horse sector, and it brings a lot of visitors. The immediate impact of this event is huge.”

“I am working for the Chamber of Commerce, the authorities in our area are aware of this different sector and they are supporting our work to get it known. It is not just the breeders, we try to promote the entire eco-system: we have a good system for racing, we have the best trainer in France based here, with 700 horses it is the second biggest racing centre in France, at the equine centre here we have dressage and jumping as well as eventing, and we have competitions throughout the year.”

“The grounds for the event are owned by the town of Pau and they are part of our promotion, part of the economical development that goes with the event and the small and medium companies that are associated with it, companies that make clothes, in electronics, in horse feed, in fencing, transport, equine law specialists, it’s a very special world that we share between us and we have to work together, breeding, racing and sport and all the industries that are involved.”