It's Not over Yet!

I'm suffering from Olympic withdrawal today.

Last night, I watched as much of the taped NBC coverage of the closing ceremonies as I could before the jet lag caught up with me. I drank in all of the highlight reels, feel-good-story recaps, and other coverage of the past two weeks--because, crazy busy as I was with Olympic equestrian coverage, I'd missed it all.

The Tower of London provided a striking backdrop for the Olympic rings in the Thames. Photo courtesy of the International Olympic Committee.

By most accounts, the 2012 London Olympic Games were a smashing success. The events were well run and the venues were well received by athletes and officials alike. The city, endlessly fascinating in its own right, proved a striking backdrop and a photographer's delight. The normally reserved British people threw themselves into the Olympic spirit, welcoming visitors and appearing to thoroughly enjoy themselves and the spotlight on London. The royal family participated. British rock stars participated. Even Mother Nature cooperated, giving London a nearly complete respite from the torrential rains that had plagued the city earlier in the summer.

The Olympic equestrian events were positively history-making. Great Britain won team gold in jumping and then claimed both the team and the individual dressage gold medals, a first in Olympic history. The largely British crowds at Greenwich Park went mad with joy; I think they did the wave at least ten times around the entire stadium after Charlotte Dujardin on Valegro won the individual dressage gold. And Dujardin's 90-plus Grand Prix Freestyle score set an Olympic record, causing even more pandemonium.

Residing as I do in a country that is lukewarm at best to equestrian sports, it was really fun to see hordes of spectators crowding around individual dressage medalists Dujardin, Adelinde Cornelissen, and Laura Bechtolsheimer, following the three women en masse as they made their way from the medal ceremony to the press-conference room. In this world, for this moment, dressage riders were superstars, with photos being snapped like mad, and tickets and pens being outthrust with requests for autographs.

London was fab...the Olympics were fab...the only thing that wasn't fab was that our wonderful event, jumper, and dressage riders couldn't seem to catch a break at these Games. It was the first time since Stockholm 1956 that the USA won no Olympic equestrian medals at all. Ouch. We equestrian enthusiasts get to know (or feel as if we know) our sports' top performers. We know how hard they work and how talented their horses are, and we feel for them when they try so hard for the brass ring and miss. But we also know that you don't get to the top without mental toughness, and we know our riders will be right back out there fighting in just two years' time, at the 2014 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games in Normandy, France.

So if the end of the Olympics and the lack of big celebrations for Team USA have you feeling down, chin up! as the Brits might say. The 2012 London Paralympic Games are just over two weeks away. The US Paralympic dressage team looks to be very strong, and we'll be bringing you news and photos from London once again. And if ever you needed something to boost your spirits, the sight of an otherwise physically disabled rider dancing with a beautiful dressage horse is sure to bring a smile to your face.

Meanwhile, if you can't get enough from the London Olympics and you're a United States Dressage Federation member, you're in luck. We'll be featuring more great photos in the November issue of USDF Connection, the USDF member magazine. Best of all, I'll be bringing you my exclusive interview with British FEI 4* judge Stephen Clarke, a member of the 2012 Olympic dressage ground jury. Mr. Clarke is a soft-spoken British gentleman of the first order--but he doesn't tiptoe around his opinions. Don't miss it.

Cheerio from London, and good luck to our Paralympians!

I'll Take My Mix Tape and Go Home

Back in the day, we made mix tapes for boyfriends, girlfriends, parties, and our own listening enjoyment. (Today we make playlists instead.)

A lot of early dressage freestyles probably got created the same way: with a dual cassette deck and a stack of vinyl.

My fantasies of one day creating a freestyle soundtrack armed only with the modern equivalent (my trusty iMac, GarageBand, and my cherished iTunes music library) were pretty much dashed when I saw this new video of Swedish Grand Prix-level competitor Tinne Vilhelmson Silfven and her horse, Don Auriello. Tinne's freestyle designer, the Dutch guru Cees Slings, put together this fascinating split-screen look at horse and rider performing their new freestyle (we'll see it at the London Olympic Games in a couple of weeks), and the professional recording session of their custom-arranged, custom-performed, custom-everything music. (It's a medley of songs by The Who, in case you were wondering.)


Who's Anton? - Tinne Vilhelmson Silfvén & Don Auriello's London 2012 Freestyle - from Cees Slings on Vimeo.

Now, the super-deluxe custom dressage freestyle is nothing new. The first one that I recall receiving a lot of attention was "Bonfire's Symphony," the original orchestral piece composed for Bonfire and Anky van Grunsven of the Netherlands. That performance won an individual silver medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

These fascinating looks at the tippy-top of our sport are reminders, however, that dressage at the Olympic level is not really the dressage that I (and possibly you, too) engage in every day. The underpinnings (the basics, as it were) are the same: good riding, good horsemanship, good care and management, and above all else a love for the horse and a commitment to his welfare. At the elite level, however, it's serious. I'm sure it's exciting and thrilling to be Tinne or Anky or Steffen or Isabell...but I'm also sure there is pressure the likes of which we hobbyists cannot imagine.

OK, I take that back. I suppose we can imagine the pressure, if we translate it to what we feel in our jobs. For at that level, being a top rider and competitor is a job. Vying for medals is serious business, and therefore it is a bona fide business investment to hire a roomful of professional session musicians to perform one's freestyle music.

This is not intended as a criticism of elite horse sport, or session musicians, or freestyle (I happen to like all three). It's a roundabout way of saying that the Olympic Games are another horse show and yet not another horse show. They are the same, and the rules are the same (more or less) as at any other FEI dressage competition; yet there is an intensity, a fierce patriotism, and a palpable feeling of pressure at Olympic Games and World Equestrian Games that just aren't there at other horse shows.

It's a crucible, these Olympic Games--wonderful, but demanding. I admire those with the mental toughness to get there. And just maybe I'll get so inspired by this year's freestyles that I'll come home and start fiddling with GarageBand. Hey, you have to start somewhere.

And the Team Is...

The 2012 US dressage Olympic selection trials concluded yesterday. So who's going to the London Olympic Games?

The US Equestrian Team Foundation's Maureen Pethick wasn't exactly sure. Neither was US Equestrian Federation PR rep Joanie Morris.

Huh? How can we not know?

Try to decipher the International Equestrian Federation's (FEI) 2012 Olympic dressage procedures and you'll begin to understand why. It's complicated.

There are rules governing who and how many can make the team...whether a nation can send an individual and/or a reserve rider...even the exact hour by which any lineup changes must be announced.  Making things somewhat more confusing this year is the fact that our #1 rider, Steffen Peters, qualified with two horses: Ravel, who earned a "bye" and didn't have to compete at the 2012 USEF Dressage Festival of Champions in Gladstone, NJ; and Legolas 92, who won the Grand Prix championship title and thereby also qualified for London.

The questions began: Can Steffen ride two horses in London? Can someone else ride Ravel or Legolas if Steffen becomes unable to compete? Can the US send a reserve horse? How many horses will we ship to Great Britain?

For answers, I went directly to the one person I knew could straighten me out: Anne Gribbons. Anne, as you may know, is the USEF national dressage technical advisor and high-performance coach. So here's the deal, straight from the horse's mouth, as they say.

First, we begin with what's officially known as the nominated entry--the list of the top finishers at the Olympic selection trials who are qualified for London. Note in the USEF press release announcing the nominated entry that Steffen Peters holds both the #1 and the #3 positions, with Ravel and Legolas 92, respectively.

International Olympic Committee dressage rules for London permit only three horse-rider combinations per team. In addition, each athlete may be paired with only one horse.

Translation: Steffen Peters may ride either Ravel or Legolas, but not both, according to Anne Gribbons.  Ravel is the top horse, so he is the team pick. But because the USEF wants to ensure that Steffen will ride, Legolas will ship to England as a reserve mount for Steffen only--no "catch riding" allowed at the Olympics, Anne explained.

The #2 team slot goes to the #2 finisher in the selection trials: 2012 USEF national Grand Prix reserve champion Tina Konyot on Calecto V. With the #3-ranked horse being Legolas, the third team slot therefore goes to the #4-ranked combination: Jan Ebeling on Rafalca.

Here's where things get interesting. According to Anne Gribbons, the #5-ranked pair, Adrienne Lyle on Wizard, will travel to London with the intention of competing as individuals. However, "Wizard will be a team horse and not compete as an individual should something happen" to a team horse or rider, Anne said.

But wait; there's more. In the press conference following the selection-trials conclusion, Anne stated that the USEF's intention is to ship "five or six" horses to England. So who's #6?

That would be the horse next in line in the ranking succession whose rider and owner grants permission for the horse to travel to England strictly to wait in the wings as a reserve horse. If Wizard gets "called up" for team duty, horse #6 could then compete as an individual.

Will Todd Flettrich and Otto travel to England with the US team? We'll know today, according to Anne Gribbons. Photo by Jennifer Bryant.

As it stands according to the selection-trials results, "Otto would be the sixth horse," Anne said, referring to Todd Flettrich's mount. But agreeing to travel in this reserve position is not obligatory, and so "the rider and owner have to have a chat and decide" what to do, she explained. Todd and Otto's owner, Margaret Duprey of Cherry Knoll Farm, West Grove, PA, have until today to tell the USEF yes or no (although I suspect Anne already knows what the answer will be).

Should they decline, then the USEF will extend the invitation to the next-ranked pair (Heather Blitz on Paragon), and so on down the line. One way or another, the lineup will be finalized by day's end today, Anne said.

Regardless of how many horses we ship to England, only four will actually wind up at the 2012 Olympic equestrian venue, Greenwich Park, Anne said. The US contingent will spend the last two weeks of July at a rented farm situated about 90 minutes from the venue, she said. Come time to ship to Greenwich Park, assuming Ravel, Calecto V, Rafalca, and Wizard are sound and healthy, those four horses will head to the Olympics, and Legolas and Otto will remain behind.

For a detailed look at Greenwich Park and the upcoming Olympic dressage competition, see my Olympic preview in the July/August issue of USDF Connection, the member magazine of the United States Dressage Federation. (Not a member? Here's how to join.)

In my next post, I'll continue my interview with Anne Gribbons, who discusses the Olympic travel timetable and the American dressage riders' chances in London.

Ready or Not, Olympic Dressage Goes Prime Time!

For years, we American dressage enthusiasts have bemoaned our sport's lack of mainstream recognition -- no TV or newspaper coverage, blank stares at cocktail parties, and the like.

That's all changed.

Last night, Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert proclaimed (tongue firmly in cheek) on "The Colbert Report" that dressage is his "sport of the summer" and that Jan Ebeling's mount Rafalca is his new favorite athlete. And yes, Rafalca is co-owned by US presidential candidate Mitt Romney's wife, Ann; and so yes, there were lots of not-so-subtle digs at the Romneys' moneyed status. Have a look:

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

You know the old saying "Be careful what you wish for"? Well, we wished for more recognition -- and we got it. I hope that Colbert's bit intrigues some viewers enough that they decide to learn more about the sport of dressage. And can you just imagine how much airplay and ink we'll get if Jan and Rafalca make the Olympic team?

Get your foam fingers ready! Now that's a USDF merchandising opportunity if ever I saw one.

The Steffen & Steffen Show

For the first time in the history of American dressage, we may have a rider in the enviable position of bringing not one but two mounts to an Olympic Games.

The European superstars are accustomed to such a cornucopia of equine abundance. Isabell Werth, Anky van Grunsven, and the like have "strings" of big-tour and small-tour horses. For them, the question so often isn't whether they'll qualify for a major championships, but with which horse.

But as United States Equestrian Federation dressage technical advisor and high-performance coach Anne Gribbons frequently points out, in this country top dressage riders are more likely to have one "big" horse. If that horse becomes unfit to compete or is sold, the rider is effectively out of the running, no matter how good he or she is.

For at least one US Olympic dressage contender, the days of pinning every hope and dream to one mount may be over. Even before the 2012 US dressage Olympic selection trials began last weekend at the 2012 USEF Dressage Festival of Champions, we knew that Steffen Peters, of San Diego, CA, would be on the team, as his flagship mount, Ravel, had been granted a bye not to compete at Gladstone. What we didn't know was that Steffen would emerge from the first weekend of competition the clear favorite to clinch the 2012 USEF National Grand Prix championship title and therefore the #2 Olympic-team slot -- on a different horse.

That's right: Aboard Legolas 92, a ten-year-old Westfalen gelding, Steffen swept both the FEI Grand Prix (76.064%) and the Olympic Grand Prix Special (77.933%). If Legolas keeps this up for the second round of competition this weekend (a second GP and GP Special), he'll win the GP championship and Steffen will be in the enviable position of having a reserve horse to take to London, according to Anne Gribbons.

As Anne explains, International Olympic Committee rules do not permit "catch riding," and an athlete may compete with only one horse in dressage. So the likely outcome is that Ravel will be the team horse and Legolas will be the reserve -- which would ensure that Steffen will ride for the US in London, one way or the other.

None of this would be possible without Akiko Yamazaki, who owns both horses. It is a fact of the top levels of equestrian sport that the horses tend to cost more than riders can afford on their own. Even a young horse can be prohibitively expensive if it shows superstar potential. At the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games, of the US dressage riders, only Tina Konyot owned her mount, the Danish Warmblood stallion Calecto V (the pair is currently sitting in the number-two spot in the 2012 USEF Grand Prix National Championship standings, making a trip to London look promising).

So we thank Akiko and all the other generous sponsors and owners, and we wish Steffen the best. Yeah, he's a lucky guy, but he's damned talented and he's made a lot of his luck happen from years of hard work. And if all goes well, maybe I'll get to snap a picture in London like this one, taken at the 2010 WEG.

Steffen Peters ascends the individual bronze-medal podium at the 2010 WEG. Photo by Jennifer Bryant.

Let the Games Begin

The goal: Representing one's country in international competition

It's the day before the first round of 2012 US Olympic dressage selection trials; and fittingly, my Olympic Games press credential just arrived in the mail. (Whew.)

The fifteen horses and riders contesting the 2012 United States Equestrian Federation Grand Prix Dressage Championships (minus Steffen Peters' mount Ravel, who was granted a bye) are getting ready for the veterinary inspection (the "jog") as I write this. Assuming all pass, they'll get under way bright and early tomorrow, Saturday, June 9, at 8:00 a.m. EDT at United States Equestrian Team Foundation headquarters in Gladstone, NJ.

The contenders will ride the FEI Grand Prix test tomorrow and the Olympic Grand Prix Special (a different test from the FEI GP Special) on Sunday, June 10, also beginning at 8:00 a.m. New Jersey weekend temperatures are forecast to soar into the upper 80s, so I'm sure the competitors are thankful they'll be riding in the relative cool of the morning.

Although we won't be seeing Ravel at Gladstone, we'll most certainly be seeing Steffen Peters. His other Grand Prix-level mount, Legolas, is also an Olympic contender. (Can you imagine having not just one but two Olympic-hopeful horses?) And Steffen will also be riding in the Intermediaire I championship with rising star Sundance.

The USEF Network will be broadcasting both Grand Prix classes, which are part of the 2012 USEF Dressage Festival of Champions. Other championship divisions being held this weekend are the FEI Pony, Junior, and Young Rider. See the USEF Network link for a complete schedule.

Come with Me to London!

Three of my favorite things are: dressage, the Olympic Games, and the city of London.

Put the three together and I'm in horse/equestrian sports/Anglophile heaven.

This weekend at the 2012 United States Equestrian Federation Dressage Festival of Champions, the road to London begins in earnest for American dressage hopefuls. The top 15 horses and riders in the country  will contest the FEI Grand Prix and the Olympic Grand Prix Special in the first of two weekends of competition comprising the 2012 USEF National Grand Prix Dressage Championship and the 2012 US dressage Olympic selection trials.

Follow this blog for coverage, commentary, photos, interviews, and as much behind-the-scenes info as I can cram in.

Cheerio!