16 days to go!

Mary King and her Olympic ride Imperial Cavalier

With the Olympics a mere couple of weeks away many predictions as to who is going to take the medals are beginning to circulate. In the Equestrian disciplines our teams appear to be the strongest they’ve ever been and our chance of clinching the gold seems as likely as ever. Before the Olympics have even begun our Eventing team has been blighted with injury and controversy, with the sad withdrawal of Piggy French after injury of both Jakata and DHI Topper W. The surprise initial rejection of Nicola Wilson and everyone’s favourite Opposition Buzz had rather a bittersweet ending when they managed to secure a place on the team when Piggy was forced to pull out. The final team is Tina Cook with Miners Frolic, William Fox-Pitt with Lionheart, Mary King with Imperial Cavalier, Zara Phillips with High Kingdom and Nicola Wilson with Opposition Buzz. We now must pray they all stay safe and sound in the short run up to the games, I do believe it’s time to bubble wrap the horses!

Andrew Nicholson on his way to a win at Barbury

With all of the predictions circulating it’s time for me to name mine (or attempt to, at least). I must say it’s a difficult decision, the performances from so many riders across the nations have been astounding recently. We saw Andrew Nicholson take a 1,2 in the CIC*** at Barbury earlier this month, Christopher Burton winning Aachen on his sub-40 dressage score and Michael Jung achieving a 1,2 at Luhmuhlen in June. Their nations; New Zealand, Australia and Germany respectively, are perhaps Great Britain’s toughest competition for the Gold medal. The New Zealand team is particularly strong, consisting of Jock Paget with Clifton Promise, Caroline Powell and Lenamore, Andrew Nicholson and Nereo, Jonelle Richards and Flintstar and Mark Todd and NZB Campino. Their form recently, particularly Andrew Nicholson’s makes them favourable for the top spot at Greenwich, but the German team are unlikely to make this easy for them. Known for their admirable dressage scores the top of the leaderboard after the first day of competition is likely to feature a number of German names, notably Michael Jung (recently 3rd at Aachen) who rides La Biosthetique Sam FBW (a horse who’s name proves a challenge for the 140 character limit on Twitter). Jung is looking to add to his collection of golds – notably his individual title at the 2010 World Equestrian Games as well as his individual and team gold at the 2011 Europeans. With this form, he is perhaps favourite to take the individual Gold. Despite this and the obvious strengths of both New Zealand and Germany our British team are also in with a fighting chance of standing on the top spot of the podium on the 31st July. William Fox-Pitt (1st at Kentucky, Bramham and Tattersalls this year) is looking stronger than ever and despite two of his qualified horses out with injury (Oslo and Cool Mountain), William is still a favourite for a medal. The Brits as a team are exceptionally strong and I would love for them to clinch the team gold, an achievement I believe is highly likely.

I look forward to the forthcoming games which are now scarily close (the announcement that we’d won the bid feels like yesterday!), and wish a safe build up for all horses and riders competing. I leave you with a cracking video from Barbury last weekend, where Clayton Fredericks performs quite a stunt...

Is Equestrianism falling into the shadows?

Is Equestrianism falling into the shadows?

For us riders we often believe our sport probably doesn’t get the recognition it deserves nowadays. There was a time when Lucinda Green was a household name, when Milton was a celebrity in his own right and when Princess Anne’s riding career was front page news. Yet now if you asked someone not directly involved in the sport who the likes of Mary King or William Fox-Pitt were, they wouldn’t be able to give you an answer. Is this an indication that our sport is falling into the shadows?

With supposedly two million horse riders in the UK equestrianism certainly isn’t a flailing sport in that sense, yet the sport seems to be becoming more and more closed off from the outside world. The television coverage offered now on non-satellite television is minimal, and the recognition given to our top riders and horses is also trifling. So why is our sport getting so little acknowledgment from the outside world? We can switch on the television at the weekend and see the likes of snooker, golf and darts – sports which probably have a similar following than equestrian - yet we rarely see footage from our top events and competitions.

Perhaps the divide between us and the non-horsey population is due to the stereotypical image we’re all given as soon as we so much as mention the phrase ‘horse riding’. Obviously not everyone brands us with this mark, and certainly not all of us oppose this image, yet this particular stereotype pushes the distance. Many people over the years have made a negative remark about me riding, with the likes of ‘posh’ and ‘rich’ being among the most popular. Yet, for some this cannot be further from the truth. Many of us are not rich because we have horses, not the other way round! This image given to us will instantly put others off the sport. The price tag involved is often way over-dramatized and exaggerated, thus forcing people to think they won’t be able to afford horses even before starting. This may instantly be the reason why our sport isn’t as widely appreciated and recognised as we would like it to be, and why our televised coverage is somewhat lacking. Nobody who isn’t involved in the sport is going to deliberately switch on for instance the Badminton coverage and watch it; equestrianism is one of those sports you have to be involved in in some way in order to appreciate it in all its glory. I’ve realised I’m rambling rather a lot now, I’ll continue on the subject matter!

According to the BBC, the reason they dropped the likes of the Hickstead Derby in 2010 was due to low viewing figures and the fact that they wanted to cover a wider range of sports. Now, call me wrong but I am yet to see any change in the range of televised sports on the BBC. Perhaps the low viewing figures can also be blamed on the lack of advertising and information given to us about when our events are going to be televised. Other sports around the world get quick adverts and media coverage to inform us, yet equestrian sports get none of this. Badminton was not once advertised on television, despite being on the red button all day and on BBC2 for hours. Perhaps the low viewing figures can be blamed on this.

The less televised coverage and media coverage equestrian sports get, the less people are likely to want to know more and get involved. Riding isn’t the sort of sport someone who doesn’t take part in watches – unlike football etc., and so therefore this seriously limits the amount of people likely to watch. I know for a fact many of my close non-horsey friends have no interest whatsoever in watching an equine sport on television, yet will happily watch tennis or football – neither of which they personally take part in.

I think in a sense our sport is falling into the shadows, yet not in a sense of it being a small or unpopular sport – more in a sense of the fact that it’s becoming quite private. We’re almost in our own world now, and it never used to be like this. This pulls us out of the media’s eye (which may in some ways be a good thing!), and thus means our riders and horses do not get the recognition for their achievements as they perhaps should do. I’ll use the example of our team GBR’s fantastic triumph in the World Equestrian Games last year, team gold and individual silver for William. Yet this was disappointingly not acknowledged by our national papers or news teams. In my opinion they deserve so much more credit for what they do, and I hope that the current media state will improve in the future.