Tag: Dressage

[Photo: 123.rf]

 

A smiling grandfather, a pleased mother and a doting father swelled with pride as a 31-year-old woman braved sudden high winds in the first preliminary round in the equestrian category of eventing or cross-country trials in London’s Greenwich Park on July 26.

[Photo: zimbio.com]

What makes this flow of familial pride significant is that the rider is Zara Phillips, daughter of the Princess Royal Anne and first granddaughter of the reigning Queen Elizabeth.

Qualifying for the second preliminary round on July 31, in spite of a violent gust of wind, riding High Kingdom, she finished the hilly, winding 5700 meter-course in 9 minutes 56 seconds, with seven seconds to spare, ranking 24 out of 25 in a 75-rider round to qualify for the next eventing round of racing and jumping.

“Considered a backwater of the Olympic Games,” in the words of the “New York Times'” Mary Pilon, Phillips qualifying win won the approval of some 50,000 fans who crowded to see this minor royal ride.

Phillips has taken a leaf out of mother’s book: the Princess Royal is a former Olympian in this equestrian sport and an accomplished horsewoman. Although she was listed as a member of the British team at the 2008 Beijing Summer Games, she had to withdraw owing to a training injury of her horse Toytown.

Interest in Phillips may partially seen in the glamor, pomp and circumstance of 2012 being a Jubilee Year of Elizabeth II 60th year on the throne; partly, too, in heartening nostalgia of the glory that was the far-flung British empire; and, partly, still more, to the all-embracing pride the United Kingdom has, in the face of bad economics times, in staging the Summer Games in shirking off a condition of world weariness, in a renewed vigor and pleasure in “I’m proud to be British” sense of pride and self.

Yet, we cannot lose sight of a horse riding tradition that the Queen herself embodies: a tradition with its codes and conventions that has passed down from the monarch to her daughter and now from her daughter to her own daughter. And, so far, she has done her family proud during eventing’s preliminary round one.

Until 1947, equestrian sports in the Olympics were a military sport. Eventing, jump, and dressage belonged to the Calvary exclusively. This category reflected a centuries-old tradition going back to the Middle Ages; it mirrored a tradition of nobles atop trained steeds that executed well-timed, systematic routines in almost scientific precision. The rise of mechanized warfare in the 20th century opened the equestrian competition to civilians and women.

Phillips, 14th in line to the British throne, has inherited the bearing, the manners and the graceful attitude of this aristocratic art–an art that uses selected styles and routines with judged exactness not only at the Olympics and equestrian competitions.

She was to the saddle born, in other words.

Proud mother Princess Ann said that Zara rode in a sport that the British team is “strongest,” according to Reuters, and her daughter’s performance places her team second behind Germany going into the second round.

Zara admitted, according to Reuters, during her run, “High Kingdom had lost a shoe.” That loss, however, did neither put her nor her thoroughbred off her appointed task of seeking Gold or Silver or Bronze as she and her teammates move towards the medals competition in August.

And for Zara, her ancestor Richard III, in Shakespeare’s play, famously cried out “for want of a nail, a kingdom was lost,” finds no echo in her and High Kingdom’s performance at Greenwood Park.

Thunder and lightning and high winds could delay but not keep riders  [Photo: clipart.com]

in the equestrian category of eventing–from 22 nations and 75 competitors–from their appointed rounds of jumps over a twisting hilly terrain in the first preliminary round on Saturday July 28.

[Photo: Reuters]

 

Thunder may have frighten some horses, and the winds may have forced some riders to lose points, yet, when all is said and done 25-paired horse and riders made it to the second preliminary round on July 31.  The medals competition begins on August 7.

 

 

 

 

 

Since the United Kingdom is hosting the 2012 London Summer Olympics, let’s begin with Zara Phillips, Queen Elizabeth’s granddaughter who ended up in 24th place. High winds broke her stride on handling High Kingdom but not enough to deny her entry to round two.

But the biggest surprise of the day was a strong show by Japan’s Yoshiaki Oiwa, 36, on Noonday de Conde, who ranks first. According to Reuters, he himself joked, “Probably everybody is a little (shocked) now” that he outranks his strong competitors from top-seeded Germany, Australia and Great Britain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oiwa went on to note, the absence of Japanese media. He can bet when he rides in round two and has to jump 28 obstacles on an eccentric 5.7-kilometer course over hill and dale, they will be out in force. [Japan has a signal honor to have the oldest dressage rider in competition at the games.]

In fact, Italy’s Stefano Brecciaroli,37, on Apollo beat out to-seeded favorites Britain’s William Fox-Pitt, 43 on Lionheat, New Zealand’s Andrew Nicholson, 50, on Nereo and Germany’s Michael Jung, 29, on Sam, among top contenders. Demark’s Anne-Mette Binder, according to Reuters, thought lightning had caused her to 14th place.

Still the 25 cross-country eventing contenders in the second round are fierce competitors. And the outcome may not please everyone. What, however, is certain: closely ranked British, Germans and Australians are looking forwards to winning Gold, Silver or Bronze in the medals competitor, if you look at top-medalist countries in Wikipedia list.

First round, first-ranked Oiwa will give his competitors a good run. He is German trained, and Germany has the signal honor of being historically the top medal winners in the Olympics. And he has benefitted from that tradition, it seems. Still, will the legs of Noonday de Conde bring him to another first rank or a rank good enough to go on to the medals competition?

Zara Phillips’ mother Princess Anne, herself an OLympian in eventing, broadly beaming at her daughter’s success has high hopes for the UK team. “Cross country is our strongest phase so we can improve our score,” according to Reuters.

To flashes of lightning and rolling of thunder, accompanied by sudden heavy rains, I ventured into Jay Gatsby country in New York’s Long Island, to visit a horse farm.

[Photo: wallpaperstock.com]

 

Through a chain of he knows, she knows and we know someone who is an aficionado of dressage who owns with three partners, I wangled an invitation to a horse farm.

Met at the train station by a late 50-year-old man who looked as though he stepped out of “Vanity Fair” by his dress, he first drove me in his Sports MB to his sprawling multilevel house with a manicured lawn, tennis court, swimming pool and stables, among other furnishings on a multimillion dollar piece of real estate.

My host, a multimillionaire, prefers anonymity. I shall call him “Cal.”

Cal inherited money in real estate. He expanded his empire in land and buildings globally, and then branched out into information technology and aerospace and defense.

Given his wealth, his love of horses, it was not long before he took up dressage. He participates in local and regional dressage shows, he confesses.

Reticent about the expenses that comes with this leisurely and upper-class hobby, Cal prefers to talk of the pleasures this aristocratic sport gives him. At this point, he suggested, a trip to his horse farm was in order.

We took sometime to get there, owing to heavy rains: fallen branches on narrow, back roads made driving difficult. Finally, we drove through a large white gate on to his 20-25 acre farm. In all, Cal and his business horse-owning associates’ property houses some 100m horses.

Additionally, the farm, as a business, provides stabling and western and English riding and training in dressage. The riding school has both an indoor and outdoor training rink.

The soggy weather did not permit me to see Cal’s horse perform his dressage routine. The stables are well-lit, well-stocked and well-climatically controlled. The horses are well looked after.

Ten full-time workers and some 20-30 part-timers supplement the permanent staff as needs be. A farrier is in residence who does occasional blacksmithing. Seasoned trainers are on the payroll. A veterinarian is on call. Regularly, purveyors supply the farm with feed, equipment and any services needed.

Eight years ago, Cal and his partners bought the farm when it came on the block not only for the price [unquoted] at auction but for the paddocks and especially the large training ring to dress their horses for competition.

He does admit he is not running a money-making proposition. Rare is the year the farm turns a profit. A school is beginning to show promise of turning a small profit. Plans are a foot to open a shop; it will sell everything from reins to saddles, and the money the shop would bring in should soften the red ink on accounts.

The way Cal talks he and his partners willingly spend a pretty penny yearly for the farm and their horses upkeep, not to speak of the fees, the travel to shows, and the like. Easily, expenses run up to 4-8 million and counting yearly.

Although he does not say it, Cal is a happy horse man. Fully attired in his dressage uniform, atop his 13-year-old gelding, he looks the very image of what a classic dressage rider fancies himself. For the moment, money is no object as he luxuriates in a sense of nobility this sport bestows on him.

[Photo: pickgif.com]

 

 

 

As Cal drives me back to the train station to catch my train to New York, the words of F Scott Fitzgerald’s “Rich Boy” take on a deeper meaning for me: “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.”

[Photo: fitzgerealdmusing.blogspot.com]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It didn’t take long for the venerable grey lady to feature on page B12 on the “New York Times ” ‘SportsThursday’ [July 26, 2012] an 1800-word feature article by Mary Pilon on Rafalca, an American equestrian entry in the Dressage category.

 

 

 

 

 

[Photo: Policymic.com]

In fact, Pilon’s piece is prominently placed at the SportsThursday first page over Sam Boden’s story on the Women’s US Soccer team’s 4-3 victory over France in Glasgow, before the opening ceremonies the London Summer Olympics officially open by the lighting of the flame on Friday, in London.

Let’s face it, were it not Ann Romney but Ann Schmidt, owner of Rafalca, would Mary Pilon be assigned to a feature on Dressage? Hardly. If anything, the Times would very well “passer sous silence” on the matter. In fact, the American paper of note might have simply made mention in a laundry list of medal winners, who won the Gold, Silver and Bronze in this category.

It doesn’t take rocket science to figure out the reason why the Times’ spotlight is on this thoroughbred: the headline tells more than half the story–“Behind a Gifted Horse, a Powerful Owner.” And this powerful person who has one-third legal title to Rafalca happens to be Ann Romney, wife of Willard Mitt Romney, the heir presumptive to the 2012 Republican nominee to the White House. (La Romney, herself an amateur rider, credits horseback riding for the remission of her multiple sclerosis.)

But this is not the story as far as Rafalca is concerned. The 15-year-old mare has a long German lineage. Her rider, German-born Jan Ebeling, is the husband of Amy Ebeling who also has a 33-percent ownership claim on the horse. (Beth Meyer owns the last third share.)

[Photo: Dressage-news.com]

With great detail Pilon goes into the particular ancestry of German-born Rafalca. According to “Dressage News,” reported in the Times,”Rafalca is a classic horse,” and she “fits with Jan’s personality and Jan’s training, which is very consistent and classical. They fit each other.”

Pilon goes on to trace Rafalca’s life and career from birth in Menslage, in northern Germany, to her diet, and then to her early training and races and second- and first-place wins. Qualities inherited from illustrious sires and dams, mingled with a reference to genes, has overtones of racial purity that once flourished in the 1936 Summer Games in Berlin.

But, the description is standard stable-door talk in evaluating thoroughbreds. Yet, in the age of Occupy Wall Street and the large disparity of wealth socked away in Swiss bank and Cayman Island accounts and the personal wealth of the Romney, supplemented annually by Bain Capital funds, this kind of ownership and “racial talk” might shock and stir up unpleasant moments in Olympics history.

Ebeling himself defended Dressage against a rich man’s sport, which Thorstein Veblen had something to say in his “Theory of the Leisure Class,” as “not an elite sport.” Well it ain’t something for the masses, either!

[Photo: democraticunderground.com]

Still, the Times has set the tone on coverage of La Romney at 12-day Summer Games. And will indirectly shine her husband’s family coat of arms as he vies for president of the US in the upcoming November elections.

 

 

 

“The Wall Street Journal’s” special report “Who’s going to win” at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, scheduled to start on July 27, projects that “the U.S. will win–and win big”: a total of 108 medals. America will out perform its competitors by capturing 40 Gold medals.

Is the Journal’s enthusiasm boosterism? That remains to be seen.

Will Dressage be one of those medals? Ann Romney will be on hand for the equestrian events: her horse Rafalca is entered in the equestrian competition.

[Photo: Dressage-news.com]

 

Since she is the wife of the Republican nominee for the White House, and since she credits horse backing riding for the remission of her multiple sclerosis, the media–domestic and foreign–will pay more attention to a sport that in the past usually takes second place at Olympic games.

And yet, statistically speaking, America has done herself proud at Summer games in eventing, jumping and dressage since the Olympics began in 1896, ranking fifth in Olympic medalists in equestrian, with 11 Gold, 20 Silver and 18 Bronze.

According to “Dressage Daily,” the American equestrian team of two men and two women–Steffen Peters, Jan Ebeling, Adrienne Lyle and Tina Konyot–are ready to ride and win.

The US Four locked in slots on the dressage team as a result of four competitions: two Grand Prix and two Olympic Grand Prix Specials, each accounting 25 percent of the total score.

Here is how rider and horse ranked: Peters riding Legolas scored 77.653 percent; Konyot on Calecto V had 76.873 percent; Ebeling on Rafalca received 73.169 percent; and lastly, Lyle on Wizard with 72.558 percent. In all, more than respectable performances for rider and horse.

No stranger to the Olympics. Peters, 48, won a Bronze at Atlanta in 1964. Lyle, 27,placed fourth at Beijing in 2008. Konyot, 53, after first watching Dressage at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, found her place on the 2012 team. Ebeling, 53, on the other hand, like his other team mates has won honors in equestrian events in the US and Europe.  Collectively, the US equestrian team appear strong competitors in the four slots for individual eventing, 5 in team jumping and 4 in total dressage. (Only the strong German and British teams have signed up for the same total of 13 in three categories.)

As for the US team jumpers, Elizabeth “Breezie” Madden, 49, on Via Volo, won the Gold for team jumping twice–Athens in 2004 and Beijing in 2008. McLain Ward, 37, on Antares F, also an Athens Gold for team jumping. Equestrian Rich Fellers, 52, riding Flexible, has a long and successful career in individual and team jumping. And then there are Charlie Jayne, 44, with RZ, short listed for the games in Beijing and Reed Kessler, 18, jumping with Cylana, is the youngest female show jump ever to participate in the Summer games.

Lasting rounding out the American equestrians for eventing are:  well-seansoned Will Coleman, 29, on Twizzel; champion Tiana Coudary, 21, riding Ringwood Magister; Australian-born, 12 times leading rider, Phillip Dutton, 49, on Mystery Whisper, has been participating in the Olympics since 1996, but only twice for the US at Beijing and now London; Australian native Boyd Martin, 33, winner of many competitions, will be eventing on Otis Barbotiere; and lastly, veteran eventer, Karen O’Connor, 54, on Mr. Endicott, is the oldest member of Team USA’s equestrian team.

All in all, Team USA equestrian, well balanced in age and experience, appear formidable competitors in eventing, jumping and dressage at the 2012 London Summer games.

Eventing preliminaries are scheduled on July 28 and 29 at 10 a.m. (GMT) and cross-country on July 30 at 7:30 a.m. The medal rounds will take place for dressage (group) on August 7 at 5 a.m.; for individual jumping on August 8 at 5 a.m.; and finally, on August 9, for individual dressage at 7:30 a.m.

In spite of the unusually wet summer in England, punters are trimming odds for the US’ defending the Gold in team jumping; have a soft eye on Peters for individual dressage, yet remain cautious on who to pick for eventing.

Nonetheless, despite the American equestrians strengths, the cameras will surely be zoomed on Ann Romney and her entry Rafalca. She brings to the London games a strong bond to the Olympics since her husband and Republican hopeful for the presidency Mitt presided over the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City more than a decade ago.

Were Rafalca to nab the Gold, some might be tempted to read into that honor a hopeful sign than in January 2013 Ann Romney might be the hostess at the White House as the wife of America’s 45th president.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 2012 London Games Equestrian competition begins on July 28 and ends on July 30. The three-day events have three individual and team elements: eventing (cross-country riding), dressage and jumping.

{Photo: en.beijing2008.jpg]

Forty countries will compete in one or all three events. Not surprising Europe, the United States and Australia dominate the sport, but Brazil is a strong contender having won the Gold at the 2008 Beijing Games.

{Photo: usef.org]

Overall, 300 riders will vie for the Gold, the Silver and the Bronze in one or two or three categories.

Here’s an interesting side to this sport: animals compete with humans in the way they ride, jump or are dressed. It is an equal opportunity in that it is one of three sports where male and female compete with each other–the  other two are sailing and mixed tennis doubles.

[Photo: nlfarm.com]

And yet, although horse competition originated in the blue dust of ancient Grecian games, the sport, as the world-renown Viennese Spanish Riding School describes it, has its roots in “die Renaissance Tradition,” inspired by knights on horseback.

Not all eyes will be turned on 71-year-old Hiroshi Hoketsu in the 2012 Summer London Olympics, as he will put his 15-year-old mare Whisper through her paces for a medal in Dressage.

[Photo: concordmonitor.com]

Already in the 2008 Games in Beijing, the then 67-year-old Japanese rider was the oldest contender in this equestrian sport. Yet, he was no novice at the Olympics; he has been competing since 1964 when Japan once again took her place in sponsoring the summer Olympic games after being banned for its role in world war two.

“Last Summer, I thought it would be impossible to make London, so it fills me with deep emotions,” Hoketsu said when he locked in a place in the summer games.

Some might seen in him the great white hope of old, in an age when baby boomers are entering their golden years. But win or lose, Hoketsu has the distinction of being the oldest Japanese athlete to participate in any event.

Still more, Dressage is the kind of Olympic sport that is comes closest in spirit to the annual Westminster Dog Show in its appeal.

Nonetheless, the eyes of the British who are famously known for their passion for dressage from the Royals to the wealthy horsey set, will be watching Hoketsu with interest.