Jan Greve withdraws

He danced on the volcano, but never fell into its crater

Bruised horses are always looking for a party

Holland’s leading equestrian journalist Jacob Melissen inteviews the former Dutch Team Vet, who pulls no punches!

Jan Greve turned 70 on January 3^rd 2018. For him it is not the moment to quit entirely as a practicing veterinarian, but it is the moment, after much deliberation, to put an end to his career as team veterinarian for the KNHS (the Dutch equestrian federation). This decision comes just before completing forty years as a supervisor of top sport eventing, dressage and jumping horses. “For me there was less room to voice my opinion on several fronts, so before this became a breaking point, I decided to stop.”

In 1979 Jan Greve was asked by the then chairman of the Dutch Composed Competition Association, Karel Denneboom (also chairman of the Military Boekelo), to become a team vet of the eventing horses. “At that time I was still working in Bosch en Duin at the clinic of Evert Offereins,” Jan says. “I had experienced the guidance from the Evert up close and, amongst other things, I had been to the Olympic Games in Munich. I quit after the World Cup in Stockholm in 1990. Mostly because Eddy Stibbe dominated the whole course of events.”

In 1990, Jan, at the request of Hans Horn, switched to showjumping horses. “In 1996 at the European Championships ponies, my son Willem entered competition with Basje. I decided to join him and pass on the Olympics in Atlanta. I had a great time with those teams. After that came the juniors and Young Riders in showjumping, with the occasional trip to the senior riders. My friend Arie Hoogendoorn, veterenarian at clinic De Watermolen in Haaksbergen, joined the team as the team veterinarian for the dressage riders to Hong Kong (2008), after which I took over from him. He took charge of the A-seniors showjumping.”

“In the run-up to London (2012) a conflict arose with national coach Sjef Janssen. The plan I had set out for Parzival apparently wasn’t fast enough for him, so he arranged it himself without considering my professional opinion. At moments like that, I just think ‘go ahead and do it yourself’. Quitting was very easy at that time. I can and will take responsibility for my own work, but not for that of others. Especially not when I have not been heard in advance.”

Looking back, as a veterinarian, who were you able to work with best?

“My years with the eventing horses were beautiful. Really veterinarian labour. I especially enjoyed the condition building and the evenings after the cross. But as a team vet, my favourite period was the youth and young riders showjumping team. First with Daan Nanning, a top notch trainer and a great coach, who could be to modest on occasion. I remember that he did not change his son Niels, who was the reserve rider of the team, for a disappointing core member. Gone was the gold team medal! It’s a shame that social pressure became too much for Daan.”

“After than, I spent some time with with national coach Sven Harmsen. He was very jovial and a great coach. We went to see the horses he had in mind for the team together. That way I knew which ones were the weak four-legged brothers, which horses needed extra attention, and which were top fit. There was always consultation, even when the team was formed. Sven would come to me and ask: ‘What do you think, can I choose that one, or do I have to choose the other, because will they last or not?’. Us working well together also came from the fact that both of us did not whine or beat around the bush, but were clearly voicing our honest opinions – with respect for each other .”

Why are you retiring?

“Life is a choice between pain and pleasure. It is taking more and more effort to come up with the necessary enthusiasm. Gradually I have come to the point where the pleasure of working as a team vet brings me, no longer outweighs the effort it costs me. That feeling has become stronger over the last two years. On the other hand, isn’t it completely normal for a seventy-year-old to put down the reins?”

What causes the pain?

“I tried to be as involved in dressage as I was in eventing and showjumping. Initially I was met with a lot of suspicion as a result of loose lips in the past. That slowly faded, but it never completely went away, despite the cooperation of Marc Sulz, Sjef DeSmedt, Jaques Maree and Veronique Swagemakers to name a few.”

“The contact with the current national coach is minimal, so I am always behind instead of being able to act proactively. It is a game that you must be willing and able to play with each other. What is my role at competitions? If you find that the added value you think you have, has faded away, it’s time to stop. The moment comes where you think: what am I doing it for? At home we have a company with eight people and a few hundred horses to manage, including stallions. No one has thrown a clog at me – but IT is no longer there .”

How is it possible that so often top dressage horses are withdrawn just before important competitions?

“The dressage world is very conservative, and too little thought is given to the things they do, because: ‘we always do it like that’. Before a dressage horse comes out of the box to work, all four of the legs are already bandaged (as if they were to do I don’t know what) and in my opinion that is overdone. Similarly the last training before the start of the test is overdone, doubly hard, rather than keeping the horse mentally and physically fit and happy.”
“I would like to have had more influence on the management. If you see that after all these years nothing has changed, that also is part of the decision to quit. For example, I have often tried to indicate on the forecourt that they do not have to go the extra mile, just to use the warming up time to warm up and loosen up the body, and not keep repeating certain movements of the test.”

“Dressage riders in general do not have self-confidence, they want to see confirmed what they already know. They do far too much. I therefore dare to say that most of the medals have been lost on the warming up arena.”
 
Is there a difference between a showjumping and a dressage horse?

“That difference is enormous and continues to grow over the years: a showjumping horse must be intelligent, it has be able to think with the rider and to make a decision in a split second. This is necessary, because it there is always something that doesn’t go as planned. But those are all undesirable qualities for dressage horses.”

“A dressage rider wants to have a horse that does not think with them. They want a horse that is slavish, and a horse that is fine with completing the same studied routine every day. Every move is a controlled one, even the moves of the rider. If you have a horse that, despite that regime, is still fresh and cheerful, then you are king. Totilas could do that like no other, but Parzival was touching to see at the European Championships at Windsor, just like Watermill Scandic HBC at the European Championships in Rotterdam. But in general the frivololity is gone. The routine is done again and again and again. Almost as if the rider mistrusts the horse.”

“To practice a piaffe 50 times until it goes well, and then they do it again just to prove it to themselves. By the time the horse enters the ring it doesn’t work any more. Makes sense, right? In equestrian sport, it is all about making the horses do things that we like. So you have to motivate a dressage horse to do the things you want him to do. That is not possible with money or with food. You can not really force a horse. Like my friend David Hopper says: ‘You have to outsmart them!'”

Is the dressage sport doing well?

“No, of course not. But that’s up to the discipline itself, because they do not want to change anything. The joy of watching is gone, right? There’s no joy anymore, it’s all discipline and more discipline. Look at that fantastically trotting horse make a small mis-step. Immediately rewarded with a five. I know only a few riders where you can see that their horses are enjoying their job. Allow them to relax after ten minutes and then do something different.”

“For too many riders, the horse has become a machine. It is no longer a companion, and that’s how they train them. From the first step to the last. Just look at the competitions. The rider is on the horse and then at the end of the rope a man who walking around as if he has a dog on the line. It’s all fear. They don’t dare to give the horse freedom. A horse does not walk away, so the more firmly you hold him, the sooner he tries to escape. In many cases dressage is dominated by the rider’s fear of the horse. That is also the reason why a prize ceremony after a dressage competition often turns into a chaos. In a controlled world, the horses take every opportunity to throw a party. The pinnacle of control and trust is for me Jean Francois Pignon. Sixteen horses loose in the ring and they all do what he indicates through body language. Goosebumps!”

You are primarily a horseman and a veterinarian second?

“That’s correct. There are a lot of veterinarians who later studied horses more in depth, but I was crazy about horses and that’s why I became a veterinarian. I don’t want to generalise, but I don’t meet a lot of people with a feeling for horses in the dressage world and when I do, it is often to disciplined. They want to control things that cannot be controlled. They should be more playful, too many horses are not having enough fun.”

How could the KNHS have ensured that your work as a team veterinarian could still be challenging?

“It’s always working in hindsight. I think that horses should undergo a thorough veterinary examination before they are placed in a team squad. Just examine them thoroughly  in the clinic. Then I can advise to put a horse in a team, while at the same time I present the veterinary remarks. That way I can also indicate which veterinary problems are manageable, but also which ones are not. It becomes clear whether or not it is wise to put a lot of energy into a horse with a negative assessment. In my opinion this should be the case for all horses that are considered to be included in for team selection.”

“As team vet you don’t have to go to the competitions. It’s your job to know what hinders a horse and why, what you can do about it and what can improve on the road to competitions. These things you have to know in advance and that is a question of trust. Everybody has their own vet and most riders have no knowledge of veterinary medicine. But several believe that an Olympic medal around their necks gives them more knowledge of veterinary medicine than someone who has studied it and has forty years of experience in that field.”

“In addition, they all parrot back what they say to each other and it is sad to constantly re-establish how little they know of veterinary medicine. I have always wanted to share my knowledge with everyone, but it is almost as if they are not open to it. When I try to convince people of something and they do not want to listen to it, or argue with faint-hearted arguments, I experience that as a disappointment over and over again”.

Is it true that the decision to quit as a team veterinarian at the 2017 National Championships in Ermelo was taken by you?

“I was completely done with it. Something happened again that should not and could not have happened. It became clear in the preliminary phase that one of the horses was cutting it too close. Two weeks before the National Championships they brought him to me and I looked him over extensively. I tried to consult with everyone involved about the route to take leading up to the National Championships, and later the European Championships. I made very clear what could, and could not, be done. Following my recommendations, we made a plan on how we would continue, with the aim of starting at the National Championships. We would see on Saturday and Sunday how it went and only then would we decide if the horse could go to the European Championships.”

“I came to the stables on Saturday morning and asked how the horse was. The response was: ‘fine, but the decision had already been made.’ I was stupified and wondered what happened. The answer was that they had already been told on Friday night that they would not go to the European Championships. I knew nothing about that. I was offended. You make a plan in which you involve all concerned parties and suddenly they waltz right through it. The least thing they could have done is ask me how I saw it, but alas, nothing, zero. So if the national coach consciously or unconsciously does not want to ask me for my vision, what am I still doing as a team vet? The decision should have been made Sunday morning, not 36 hours before!”.

What do you think the dressage riders lack?

“The majority have little empathy. They do the same thing every day, with a dulling of the senses as a result. Provide more variety in a training program, with stretching exercises, cavalletti work, gallop training and strength exercises, and make sure it does not get boring. Epke Zonderland (a Dutch Olympian gymnast) will also train more varied than just practice with the horizontal bar. The only thing you can do is to make sure your horse enjoys the things you ask of him. Many dressage riders do not realize that a horse listens the most to the person who meddles with his body the least. They don’t believe it, but it’s true. ‘Das Gymnasium des Pferdes’ (the classic by Gustav Steinbrecht) is a very horse-friendly book, written by people who understood horses. They knew how it worked. It is just as logical as water running down the hill and never the other way round. Mother nature rules”.

You have now retired as team veterinarian. Looking back, what are proud of?

“In all those years, no horse that was my responsibility has ever tested positive for doping. Of course I have done things that weren’t allowed, but that was necessary, but always because a private vet had made mistakes during the preliminary stages. The work of a team vet can be compared to dancing on a volcano. You have to know what can be done, but even more so what cannot be done. You have to always keep in mind what the consequences of your actions are for the horse.”

“The new regulations after Hong Kong made it all easier. In the past everything had to be sneaky. Ludger’s law was: ‘Anything they cannot find is allowed’. Now much more is allowed, provided that we request it in advance. Some things remain forbidden, and that is for the best. Openness has made it easier to treat horses that are top athletes. The sneaky atmosphere in the stables has disappeared. In the past I have never had the fear that a horse that was treated by me could be tested positive for doping. But then again, I have never crossed a four-lane motorway blindfolded.”

Jan Greve – his life

Jan Greve studied for one year at the Agricultural College in Wageningen, but it was not what he was passionate about. After that he went into military service. He was stationed in Amersfoort and a happy accident allowed him to tend to the horses at Soestdijk Palace. With some regularity he had to get medicines for the horses from the clinic of Evert Offereins in Bosch and Duin. Motivated by his experiences, Greve decided to go to study veterinary medicine after his military service. He worked together with the legendary Offereins for many years. In 1981 he had to make a choice: to continue to work with Offereins in Bosch and Duin, or to make the switch back to his roots. On 1 January 1982 Jan made the switch to the parental farm in Haaksbergen, where he started his clinic De Watermolen.

Quote

“Half of our work as veterinarians is finding veterinary excuses for hippological ignorance.”

Jan Greve is also one of the world’s most successful breeders of Warmblood horses – click here to discover his views on breeding…

http://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/2012/10/breeding-philosophy-with-jan-greve/