Rebecca Ashton interviews the world’s most successful equestrian coach, Christopher Bartle – how does he do it?

Gold for Team GB at Tokyo (photo: FEI/Kai Försterling)

 He’s arguably the best equestrian coach in the world. After a twenty-year gold rush with Germany, Christopher Bartle is well on the way of repeating the same success with his home country eventing riders, Team GB. Having won Gold at the last World Equestrian Games, this year Chris and his squad also took out Team Gold at the Tokyo Olympics, and then few months later achieved the same result at the European Championships in Switzerland, as well as all individual Medals. Time to catch up with this man with the Midas touch.

(FEI photo – Christophe Taniere) 

  Tokyo, talk us through it:

 It was a strange experience. In terms of the place we were staying, we weren’t in the Olympic Village, but in a hotel in Yokohama. It was a policy decision by the equestrian discipline to stay out of the athletes’ village, just because of the risk of getting Covid in the Village. We stayed in what I referred to as a five-star prison. We were in solitary confinement in our rooms, with room service. I had a lovely view from my prison cell over the harbor.  Even just going backward and forward to the mini bus that took us to the venue, we had someone marching in front and behind us to make sure we didn’t stray. It was all pretty strict. At the end of the day, it was probably worth it as we managed to get in and out of Japan without any cases in our discipline. And we were back on the plane straight after we had competed.

 And what a result?

Laura Collett – too much work in the days before? (FEI photo – Libby Law) 

Yeah great result, and of course for GB it had been 49 years since an Eventing Team Gold. On the other side of the coin, I guess there’s a slight niggling feeling on my personal part that maybe we should have had another rider on the podium for the individual medals. The temptation is always to try to do better and better, and the risk is that athletes overwork their horses, and I think probably Laura (Collett) overworked her horse in the days before, and his test wasn’t as stunning as it should have been. His test should have been in the low 20s, I think he could have even gone 19. Ok, we can say if only this, if only that, and in the sport that’s what it’s all about I guess. Anyway, the fact is we had great team result. Oliver had a great result for the team in every phase of it. Of course Tom McEwen, a stunning performance from him and an individual silver.

Julia Krajewski – another CB production…

And I had a personal win with Julia Krajewski’s result because she has spent so much time in Yorkshire with us in the past and I’ve been so much involved in her journey as well. She is a really good and thorough trainer of horses with the likes of Chipmunk and Samourai du Thot. I take my hat off to her.

How was the preparation with Tokyo…it’s on, it’s off, it’s definitely on, maybe….

My attitude to it, and the one I tried to get across all the time to our guys, there’s going to be someone standing on a podium who’ll be very happy with a medal around their neck, and that will be the person who never gave up, who trained well and was ready on the day. And so you couldn’t start thinking will it, won’t it, shall we, shan’t we, you just had to all the time focus on the basis you take every precaution that you can at the same time, like taking a positive attitude that it will happen. That was certainly the message that we, the coaching management, including Dickie Waygood my partner in crime, he’s really good on that side of things across all disciplines. He was the Chef d’Mission for the equestrian team so he had plenty on his shoulders. He kept putting across this message and I think it was excellent.

Next Chris discusses the Games format

Do think the format will stay the same or is it too early to tell?

 It’s perhaps too early to tell, but frankly the vibes are not good in the sense that we were all trying to push for going back to a format of four in a team but I believe that’s just off the table. We all put our heap of ideas and points of views in but I get the feeling that it’s a bit of a closed shop and all the talking and pressure that we put on has no effect whatsoever. And I don’t actually think personally that it’s the IOC. The IOC says it’s down to the sporting discipline to decide, the sporting discipline says it’s the IOC, they want more flags. The organising committee wants less expense. So everyone passes the buck in terms of blame. But it was a particularly uncomfortable experience for those guys there as the reserves. They had to be ready at every second to jump on and go while at the same time they were there as bystanders. We were very fortunate that Ros Canter was a fantastic reserve for us in terms of her attitude that whole time, her positivity, she helped the others particularly Laura, so I take my hat off to her.

However I feel in a funny sort of way that was possibly her undoing at the Europeans due to the horse being, as it were, prepared and not running and doing the long journey and being perhaps short of a run or two to sharpen them both up and you get caught out. In the end, yes you have to be honest and look back and say well perhaps we should have thought about it and done something slightly different in the preparation. So we’re always learning, looking back, analysing and seeing what we can do better next time.

Christopher and his team at the 2017 Europeans in Stzegom (Libby Law photo)

And when you started with Team GB this time, they were generally quite young riders. Did you approach that differently than say a German team with your Ingrid Klimkes and the like?

 Yeah, but if I think back to my time with Team Germany, they were all quite young then too when I started in 2001. That was a long time ago! But there were the old timers then, Herbert Blocker, Dibowski had been there forever. Some guys were set in their ways, you might say.

Ingrid and Chris walking the course at the London Games

Then Ingrid was one of those younger ones, then along came Michi Jung, along came Julia, all the younger ones you tend to have a little bit more influence with.

Ingrid Klimke – one of the young ones…

I guess the same applies here at Team GB. Our first team at the Europeans at Poland, we had a mixture, up-and-comers like Ros Canter at the same time as the established riders like Tina Cook who was on that team and Nicola Wilson. I worked with her as a young rider so she’s personal to me in the sense that I’ve had some role in her development from way back while I was still at Team Germany; Tom McEwen has come through. It is always easier when you have younger ones you can mould to your style and way of thinking.

 So what is that way of thinking? I mean, winning so much gold with Germany, and now winning everything with Team GB? There has to be something you’re doing…and we want to know all your deep, dark secrets! There must be something you’re doing very differently surely. No?

Christopher with his Nations Cup winning team at Boekelo 2021 – left to right – James Rushbrooke, Nicola Wlison, Izzy Taylor and William Fox-Pitt (Libby Law photo)

 Yeah it’s fascinating, isn’t it? I don’t think I have any particular secrets. I’m obsessed about the sport, I’m obsessed about winning, I’m obsessed about thinking about everything that comes into producing a winning performance. That’s the technical side, it’s the mental side, it’s the preparation of the horses, the preparation of the athletes. As I say, I refer to them as athletes and that’s perhaps something that is a little bit different. I do have to sometimes think well what is it that produces the result because what I don’t want to do is lose it! What’s the key ingredient that’s made it work, the magic juice!

It’s obviously very satisfying but at the same time, as I said now talking about the Games, well what could you do better next time? As long as I have that when I wake up in the morning, that sort of feeling that we could be better then it’s exciting and it’s that challenge that’s exciting.

Do you take from other sports?

I’m interested in the management side of other sports. It would be something that seems illogical in a way, but Formula 1 is not dissimilar to our sport. Huge, huge budgets, totally different in that respect but what the driver is doing with his car is what the rider is doing with his horse. They get the best car they possibly can the same way we get the best horse we possibly can. They treat their car to make it perform better. We treat our horse to make it perform better. They can go to the garage and get a new tire. We can’t do that. We have to look after our horses so carefully. We can’t crash them into a wall and go get another one out of the garage. So, there are dissimilarities, but at the same time this aspect, what is in the rider’s control, and what is down to the horse, and how can we train the horse, develop this partnership. When I say train it, perhaps improve or change its way of going through the training we do. You could also liken it to other sports with a piece of equipment like sailing or cycling. Now of course in our case we have the horse as a piece of equipment so to speak, but we have all the equipment that goes with that horse.

 I guess perhaps where my approach is different I think anyway is that many people focus on the horse more than the rider. I’m obsessed about the rider.

Do you have them all working out yet?

Yes we do have them working out. Strength, condition, suppleness, balance, every aspect you can think of is important. There are little details that are so fascinating because at the end of the day when you’re talking about the eyes and the affect of the rider’s vision and their ability to separate where they’re looking from their body and vice versa, it has a minute and yet important effect on the horse’s response to the rider’s body language. (Chris and I had previously discussed some work I’d seen with eye/body/mind connection).

Way, way back in the days when I used to teach in Dural and what I did there (Christopher used to come to Australia to teach us many moons ago), nothing’s changed in that respect. I wrote the book back in 2001 “Training the Sport Horse” and I talk there about position and body language and that still remains the essence. These things that you’ve just referred to, eye/body coordination and so on, is a huge thing.

Michi Jung and Sam starting out on their way to medals at London

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I guess it comes down to the “one percenters” which has become a popular term in sport, but it really is. Those little things.

Ingrid Klimke uses an open rein to hold her line…

Sure it is. This morning I was just looking at videos doing a cross country analysis of one particular rider, and looking at a tiny detail of the way they handle their reins, which eventually has a huge impact on how the horse responds on the cross country course, and its effectiveness on cross country. These little details, the dexterity. That can make a difference to the end result, not just in terms leading to confusion with the horse and a stop or a run out or a fall but also marginal affects on your speed and efficiency and fatigue levels going cross country.

That’s a coaching skill too, though. Being open minded to be able to look deeper and bigger.

Yeah you’re right. I’m going to be going over to Germany soon and they want me to meet up and talk with their national trainers in all disciplines. I think that’s probably where I’ll go into a bit more detail. Certainly that fascination of looking outside the box, and not staying within standard equestrian terms, what that leads to, whether that be in the dressage with how the riders sit and communicate, it’s not just about the classic text book half halt, but thinking beyond that, the physics of it, how the horse’s body is constructed, the details of how horses respond to stimulation, where the nerve endings are located, that amount of detail is interesting and can also lead to that extra 1% you talk about, or even 0.1%.

What makes a good coach?

 Winning I suppose! Attention to detail, the yes-we-can attitude, the mental side of training. Whoever you’re working with, you’re trying to take them on a journey where they are always searching for that little bit of improvement at the same time not getting to the point where they feel the journey is too long or too difficult, the target is too far away. The target has to be just within reach. Just. It just needs one more little detail to crack it. Keep that carrot just 1cm in front of their noses.

 The psychology of the person sitting in front of you is also another fascinating part of the job. Sports psychology. I actually prefer the expression mental training. We talk about technical training, physical training in terms of strength and conditioning, so mental training makes sense as well. I know psychology is a fancy term for it, but it always implies to me someone wearing a green coat and you lying on the couch. It is understanding and knowing the characters you’re working with. Everyone is an individual, and you have to find that key to them, and that key to them is not always a direct key in the sense that it’s ourselves as coaches. It might be someone on the periphery who we identify as a key person. We might need to go through another person to get it.

I always remember training with you years ago. You always communicated so well and so simply….even if it wasn’t simple.

Well no I think that is important because you go back to my point that success is only 1mm away. If you can try to put your message simply, it implies that they can fix it no problem. That’s another mantra of mine; failure motivates. We all learn more from mistakes than we do successes because  we analyse mistakes much more. Whereas successes we celebrate. But sometimes we need to stop and analyse the successes, what it was that lead to it. As far as the failure aspect is concerned, my post event analysis is always done in a way where I try to emphasise the positive, and emphasise the simplicity of fixing the problem, rather than it be critical. That’s important. You need to take the athlete on the journey with you.

Michi Jung showjumping with the great Sam

You’ve also said before the athlete needs to have the will to win, and I guess failure will motivate those people, and not those who don’t really want it.

Absolutely. Those who are immediately demotivated by failure, that’s going to apply to them in every aspect of their lives, so this is something that goes beyond sport, into how you manage your life. There’s me becoming a life coach as well! I’ve had a few people to experiment on over the years…my kids and so on! You get honest feedback from them!

Early days, Ingrid and Escada

 That will to win, is that measurable? But there are those riders who might make the team, but the riders who end up on the podium time after time, are they wired differently?

I think there is a different attitude from those top athletes in any sport who are winners. They have that all-consuming desire to be the best. They’re not satisfied being second best. In life there are those people who are great relaxed, laid back, happy go lucky people who enjoy their life, but they’re not driven by always wanting to be in the front. I guess I am in that latter category. I am a very competitive animal, and no matter what I’m doing, it doesn’t have to be equestrian, I don’t like being beaten. What I mean by being beaten, if I set off on a race now there’s no way I could win a marathon, but if I’ve set myself a goal, my win is beating my goal. That’s the sort of driven attitude I think those top sports people have.

Michi Jung making it to the last fence at Aachen, on his second ride, Takinou, persistence… 

I think also some people think they’re working really hard, and giving their all, but if they really understood what it really took to be the best, they would be shocked.

 I sometimes refer to persistence, sometimes I talk about stubborn patience. Some people get frustrated because they’re not achieving, or their horse isn’t performing, or whatever, and I talk about stubborn patience. We have all the time in the world, but we are going to do this. I have more time than you have. Sometimes when training horses, and I take the expression of George Morris, ‘you always have to have more time than your horse’. Your attitude is one of well we haven’t got it now but we’re going to stick with what we’re doing, and wait for you to change your mind, in terms of the horse. I’m not saying we need to be unrealistic in terms of our training. If it’s quite clear that a particular road has come to a dead end, then we have to admit that it’s come to an end, and try and go up another road. There’s a fine line between stubborn persistence and reality.

What riders out there in all disciplines at the moment are you really noticing?

 Oh I think it would a very long list if I stopped and thought about it. The ones who have got longevity in the sport because they perform as consistent winners. In our discipline, riders such as Oliver Townend. He has sometimes said himself, to his own detriment, he can win pretty and he can win ugly. That doesn’t go down well sometimes with some people who observe him. At the same time what he has, is that attitude. I’ve known Oliver since he left school because he came to us from school. He’s done a lot more since then, and is hugely successful, and that is partly I guess because, I can’t say this for certain without him saying yes or no, but from a coach’s perspective, I think he’s a driven person because he had to do it from zero, without any advantages in terms of background money or facilities. He’s driven himself, like a lot of top athletes, because he had a point to prove. And that continues to be a driver for him. As a person who’s coaching him, and sometimes I’ve had this with other riders, probably more males than females, you offer your best advice, you make suggestions and try to help them and initially you don’t get much feedback. You wonder sometimes if it’s gone in, or gone over, or been totally ignored. You only recognise it afterwards when you see a slight change in how they deal with things, or their style or their performance, and you think, ok something stuck there.

Oliver Townend, proving a point

Do you ever feel like you have to pull riders back a bit or is it about shaping that drive?

I think there are people who need to be restrained somewhat, to calm down, be patient. That’s partly what makes being a coach interesting, because you are dealing with these different characters.

One moment I call myself a coach, other times a trainer, another time an instructor. Each of these words mean something entirely different. When you’re in a coaching environment, you’re really doing it in an holistic sense; the technical performance, the mental performance, the lifestyle, you’re looking at so many aspects. Whereas the trainer is focused on the technical side of performance, whether that be training the horse, or training the rider. That aspect of coaching is hugely important, but less so five minutes before you’re going to go into the Olympic arena. Then it’s a case of getting the athletes to stick to their system.

Another expression I often say in coaching or training riders, I’m always looking for what I refer to as self carriage. What I mean by that, we want our horses to be in self carriage and all that, but we want the riders to be in self carriage in that they can make their own decisions, react correctly, not look for somebody outside to tell them what to do. In a training situation, I often give them a task, without any guidance, in order that they can go in there, and learn for themselves. I expect them to make a mistake as it were, and to learn from that.

Michael Jung and fischerRocona FST at the WEG in 2014

In terms of training horses, I’ll very often put fences on an imperfect distance because I want the horses to learn to adjust for that imperfect distance. Sometimes I send riders into the ring and tell them to jump the fences without having walked the course, they just get to look at the numbers and react to what’s there. These are things that help to develop that, what I call, self carriage.

How do you think your coaching has changed over the years?

The basic underpinning philosophy remains the same, but as I’ve gone along I’ve learnt by observing, by practising, by experimenting, by being told. You’re all the time picking up more information. You always wish you’d known then what you know now. I would have been a better rider! Still, it does enable me then overtime to be more helpful as a trainer and coach because I have many more experiences to fall back on and to pass on to others. You never stop learning.

Are you still riding?

Yes, not competitively but I ride horses who come for training. I haven’t got a horse of my own that I’m competing but I have my daughter’s horse. Between us we acquired a four-year-old, soon five, and the project will be for us both to see if we can get the horse ready for 2028 Los Angeles. I started my Olympic career in Los Angeles in 1984. 2028 is Los Angeles again so I’ve set myself and my daughter’s target to be at the Olympics in Los Angeles. You never know.

Christopher and Wily Trout – will another Bartle star in Los Angeles?

That’s some goal, but wouldn’t it be something? If anyone can do it, Chris Bartle must certainly be the odds on favourite.

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