WorldRides Video: The YouTube Olympics

Riding the giant 17hh British-bred Miners Frolic, Team GBR's Tina Cook won the individual bronze medal in eventing on Tuesday, and was part of the British team's bronze medal win. This eventing veteran may have won on the merits of her athletic ability and her experience and her horse's fitness and talent but after watching this little video, you may believe, as I do, that Tina has something else going for her.

The townspeople of Findon, England--and a few four-legged residents as well--patched together a video good luck message to Tina and sent it via YouTube to their favorite local Olympian.

Guess what? It worked!

Guess what else? We all get to watch it, too!

Meet the Riders: Alex Hua Tian Rides for China

As his website says, he is "1 in 1.3 billion": China's only three-day event rider. Alex Hua Tian speaks English with a Chinese accent...or is it the other way around? The Eton College student rode the German-bred Chicco to a personal-best dressage score in Hong Kong  on Saturday. He is the youngest competitor in the equestrian events, and is the first Chinese national to ever compete in eventing at any Olympics. Alex trains with Lucinda and Clayton Fredericks  of the Australian team at their farm in England. Together, they have the world map covered! Unfortunately, it looks like Alex has been eliminated on cross-country today. We're still waiting for details.(Kit Houghton photo, courtesy of FEI)

Belgian Medal Hopes: Why Karin Donckers in Second Place Is So Special

Karin Donckers rode beautifully to hold second place at the end of eventing dressage. (FEI/Kit Houghton photo)

Belgium? In second place? In Eventing?

Nestled between Australian and German high-powered team efforts lies Karin Donckers, the individual rider in eventing for Belgium. You may remember Karin's spectacular fifth place finish at the 2007 Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event. Ahead of her were Clayton Fredericks on Ben Along Time and Philip Dutton on Connaught. Both of those pairs are behind her today.

Most Americans couldn't find Belgium on a map of Europe. Maybe they know about Belgian chocolate. Or Belgian draft horses. Or they remember their World War II history and the Battle of the Bulge. Modern-day European politics are centered in Belgium; the capital city of Brussels is the seat of the European Union's government. I suppose that, yes, the sprouts come from there, too!

But what does this tiny country mean in the big picture of international equestrianism?

Belgium has a long history of high performance results. Squashed between Holland and Germany as it is, how could it not be a hot bed of top riders? Olympics gold medal winner Rodrigo Pessoa, who rides for his native Brazil, has his training center in Belgium. There must be a reason!

Let's look back in Olympic history: The nation’s riders won two of the four gold medals awarded when equestrian events were held for the first time during the second Olympic Games in Paris in 1900. The medals were awarded in the categories of jumping, long jump and high jump. Wouldn't you love to see THAT on videotape?

In 1920, when the Games were held on home soil in Antwerp, Belgian riders had their best-ever medal tally---two golds, a silver and two bronzes. By this time, the equestrian program had been expanded to include Dressage, Eventing and Vaulting. (vaulting was on the program for the first and only time, like the high jump and the long jump were in 1900).

More recently, the country has encountered harder times, and its riders have not been on the medal rostrum since the 1976 Games in Montreal, when they won a team bronze and an individual bronze.

But the Belgian equestrian fraternity is not disheartened. “We have been regular competitors at the Games, and while we haven’t been able to win a medal since Montreal we have gone close several times,” said Belgian official Mr Ingmar De Vos.

“We may have finished just out of the medals, but we have been competitive, recording two fourths in Athens, a fourth in Sydney and a fourth in Barcelona,” he stressed.

Mr De Vos, Secretary General of the Belgian Equestrian Federation and leader of the Olympic equestrian team, said that while Belgium has not been able to qualify for the team events in Hong Kong, he is is optimistic the country’s top riders can qualify for the individual events in all three disciplines, and be medal prospects.

He said among these riders are Jos Lansink, the current world champion in Jumping; Karin Donckers, who has a good record in Eventing; and Jeroen Devroe, who has been impressive in Dressage.

Event Horses Move to New Base Camp Across the Island to Run Cross-Country

Germany's Andreas Dibowski received a congratulatory hug from teammate Ingrid Klimke after his dressage test put him in 11th place...and the German team within striking distance of the Australians. (Hong Kong Jockey Club photo)

After yesterday's end of the dressage phase, the Eventing horses were transported to Beas River, located some 40 minutes away from the core Olympic equestrian venue at Sha Tin. This was done in a fantastic blitz operation during which the loading, transport and unloading took just over one hour.

Attired in their best travel boots to protect them from injuries during transportation, the 68 horses travelled in 11 huge horse vans escorted by 13 support vehicles. The unusual convoy was escorted by the police who ensured a clear road to avoid that these Very Very Important Passengers be held in any way.

The horses were unloaded from the lorries within seven minutes after their arrival on site and were immediately installed in temporary climatised stables to spend a comfortable night before Cross Country.

As I write this, it is late at night in Hong Kong and the horses are (hopefully) fast asleep. We are waiting for reports on temperature and humidity indices for Monday's highly technical cross-country run (which will technically be on Sunday night, USA time).

This might be a good time for everyone to hold his or her breath. Hold it for about the next 12 hours. The course at Beas River is highly, highly, highly technical, which means that it is not a "galloping" course at all. Some people describe it as show-jumping over natural obstacles on uneven ground. The horses will be required to collect and re-collect continuously throughout the course and the riders will need to remember a long list of optional routes that might (or might not) spare their horses but jeopardize their times.

Germany is nipping at Australia's lead now, and they are ready to attack on cross-country, thanks to Ingrid Klimke's stellar dressage test that put her in third place overall.

Klimke's teammate Andreas Dibowski told the FEI, "It will be a bit like an eight-minute jump-off!" he said, referring to the speed and frequency with which the fences will come up tomorrow. "There is no time to recover if something goes wrong so you need to give it 150% concentration but the German team position has improved, it's really looking good, and we are feeling very confident," he added.

Paris Weeps: Touziant Withdraws from Olympic Eventing Before Dressage

Galan de Sauvagere and Nicolas Touziant. I already had them pencilled in on my medal list. Touziant (shown at left) has been all but unbeatable in world-class company for the past year, including a win at Badminton. But today we learned that France's "heavy medal" individual eventing favorites withdrew in the warm-up because of his horse's hind leg lameness.
 
According to USEF's Joanie Morris, a despondent Touziant didn’t have a diagnosis, but his explanation involved an accident in the stables during a thunderstorm that took its time materializing. The French team was in shock and made the decision to withdraw him in the horse’s best interest.

I was not planning to write about Touziant for a couple of days, figuring that he would be neck and neck with the Fredericks after cross-country. I wasn't expecting this sort of news.

Olivia Robinson of the FEI shared this information:

"Thierry Touzaint, uncle of Nicolas and also French team trainer, explained that the 14 year old gelding had taken fright while standing in his stable during the thunderstorm that rolled over Hong Kong early yesterday morning.  'He fell over but got up again and we didn't think there was much wrong with him but later in the day he began to go lame and today it was much worse,' Thierry explained. 

"Yesterday Nicolas rode him and was concerned about his condition but, in the hope that he would improve and without any clear understanding of what was wrong with him even after veterinary inspection, he persisted again today but had to admit defeat.  'He just wasn't right - we think perhaps he has injured his stifle or it could be a tendon but as yet we are not certain,' Thierry explained.

"This was devastating news for the defending Olympic champions but Didier Dhennin and Ismene du Temple registered a good score of 42.80 yesterday and currently lies tenth while, although reduced to just a three-man side, Eric Vigeanel (Coronado Prior) and Jean Renaud Adde (Haston D'Elpegere) could keep them in the game if they can produce something special tomorrow morning. "

Galan de Sauvegere could be loosely translated to "elegance of the wild man" or, to make a linguistical leap of idioms, "the noble savage". The gray's Olympics hopes have been dashed at an Olympics game that we were told had only heat and humidity to worry horses. No one was expecting a typhoon!

Sorry, Nicholas, for your hardship. Thanks for taking care of your horse.

Here's a video slide montage of the French team, now minus both Galan de Sauvagere and Espoir de la Mare. There will be no dramatic defense of the Athens gold medal. The captions are in French but I am sure you will figure out what they say!

Some insight into the remaining French riders, who took home the gold medal at Athens in 2004, is shown here via the French English-language channel, France24. The video was made before the team left for Hong Kong, but it has some good insight into the team and some great behind-the-scenes footage.

Meet the Riders: Mary King of Team GBR Eventing in Top Ten Going into Cross-Country

Mary King is an anchor of experience and talent for the British eventing team.

Great Britain's Mary King began riding in her fifth Olympic Games eventing competition when she entered that dressage arena today. That's as many as Andrew Nicholson and Mark Todd. It's one more than Karen O'Connor. Mary is without a doubt one of the world's leading event riders and also one of the most consistent. If you need any more proof, look at the leaderboard after two days of dressage: Mary is in ninth place overall, she was one of the very last riders to go, and she's the only Brit in the Top Ten.

This woman doesn't like to stay home. She made the team and helped Britain win the European eventing championship in 1995...by not letting on that she was five months pregnant!!

I'd like to ask you to go to the web site of the web site of the British newspaper, The Independent, and read a terrific interview with Mary King by the journalist Brian Viner. 

It's not often you see such a piece in a newspaper about an equestrian--or any sports figure, really. This is more like a magazine feature and it is very well written. Mary comes through with flying colors, much as she will probably do tomorrow when she goes cross-country with Call Again Cavalier.

CLICK HERE to read this four-star article about one of the sport's great heroes. Cheer for Mary King!

WorldRides Video: Eventers Ostholt, Fox-Pitt and O'Connor on Chinese TV

All thumbs are up as world-class eventers Frank Ostholt (Germany), William Fox-Pitt (Great Britain) and Karen O'Connor (USA) share confidence and enthusiasm with CCTV. In the next few weeks you will see lots of clips from CCTV on this blog; it is the English-language international television network, roughly like our CNN or MSNBC.

Thanks to "OlympicHeroes" friends for their help with this video.

FIT TO COMPETE? First Vet Inspection for Eventers in Hong Kong in a Few Hours!

The inspection begins at 16.00hrs (4:00 p.m.) local time in Hong Kong on Friday. That's means it will be happening before most of us in the USA are even up on Friday morning.

Let's hope they are all sound.

Horse are grouped for inspection by nation, and the order of go is as follows:

Belarus, New Zealand, Poland, Canada, Denmark, Russia, Czech Republic, Chile, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Austria, USA, Australia, Ireland, China, Sweden, Japan, Jamaica, The Netherlands, Great Britain, Switzerland, Brazil and France.

Briton Lucinda Fredericks will ride for Australia beside her husband, Clayton, who really is Australian. Lucinda (shown here) will ride her spectacularly athletic mare, Headley Brittanica. The couple lives in England. (Photo from www.teamfredericks.com)

Get to Know: Italian Eventer Vittoria Panizzon

Tall and handsome, Rock Model may have all four hooves on the ground, but his rider's head is often in the clouds.

And that's where it belongs!

Did you know that Italian Olympic team rider Vittoria Panizzon is a member of the Italian Air Force sport group, with the rank of First Aviator?

Vittoria, who won the Junior European Eventing Championship in 2000, has been going to college in England and, of course, speaks perfect English. She now has three horses in active training in England.

You can follow Vittoria's adventures via her blog. Apparently her horse did not weather the 24 hour trip from Aachen in Germany to Hong Kong well and she's concerned, but otherwise seems to think that Hong Kong is quite a grand place! She's not too wild about the Italian team's high-tech official team togs.

Click here to read Vittoria's blog. Note: it is hosted by horsehero.com, the hot new equestrian video site in England. Most of the site is by subscription but apparently anyone can read Vittoria's blog.