The first major test of a 2012 Olympics venue – the equestrian events taking place in Greenwich Park until Wednesday – has so far been a low-key affair.

Temporary stables have been erected where sunbathers normally loll, and newly recruited volunteers still seem a little hazy on local geography.

But outside the gates, a small gaggle of protesters gathered in the sun to continue their campaign against holding Olympic equestrian events in the park.

The doggedly polite group held banners reading: “Stop horsing around in Greenwich Park,” and “Get thee to Windsor forthwith ye dunderheads” while the cream of the equestrian world took part in the Greenwich Park eventing international on the other side of the fence.

Inside, scores of children from nearby schools watched bemused as the British three-day eventer Piggy French put her horse through its dressage paces to the sound of the Black Eyed Peas.

To help convince residents of the merits of holding the equestrian events in the royal park, 2,000 tickets have been made available for the arena each day, with 5,000 for the cross country on Tuesday.

But not everyone was happy. Four women who had travelled from Hertfordshire after hearing on the radio what they thought was an appeal for the public to test the venue were turned away disappointed because they did not have tickets.

And Rachel Mawhood of the Nogoe (No to Greenwich Olympic Equestrian Events) pressure group said the inconvenience caused by the test event had alerted residents to the upheaval they would suffer during the Games, when the park will be closed for about six weeks.

“We think we still hold the moral high ground,” she said of their increasingly forlorn battle to get the Olympics organisers, Locog, to move the events to Windsor or another venue.

“This has never been built on before. It is a public park surrounded by areas of high deprivation. It’s the backyard for thousands of people living in cramped estates. People have said it looks unrecognisable and like an open prison.”

Campaigners’ concerns span the contravention of ancient bylaws, the erosion of acid grassland, whether or not organisers are holding to the terms of their planning permission and fears that the transport infrastructure will not cope.

The London 2012 chairman, Lord Coe, looked at home as he walked the cross country course in wraparound shades. He said he believed long-running consultations with residents had quelled most of their concerns. Coe has long-standing links to the sport and said holding the events in Greenwich would deliver on a promise he made to competitors.

“The competitors, some of whom are very good friends of mine, all sat down and said we had the ability to do something no one had ever done before. That is, to not let the sport be disembodied and to give them the full Olympic experience,” he said.

“There’s no country that puts on an equestrian event as well as we do. The commitment was to make it close, showcase the sport and to get new audiences into equestrian events. You could not have guaranteed to put one more person into the sport had you taken it back to its heartland again.”

The competitors praised the venue, which involved closing a large area of the park next to the National Maritime Museum and the Queen’s House to construct the 2,000-seat grandstand. The arena, constructed on a raised platform to avoid damaging the grass, will house 22,000 spectators at Games time while the cross-country course takes in much of the Park.

“Turning to the right during the dressage test, seeing the view of the skyline is surreal. You think you could be in a movie but it’s actually happening,” said French.

Organisers say for the first time equestrian competitors will feel at the heart of the action.

They believe a TV backdrop that combines historic 17th-century Inigo Jones architecture and the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf will give the sport added appeal and introduce a new generation of fans. Meanwhile, its proximity to Stratford will enable athletes to stay in the village.

“The venue looks great. It’s novel for us to be in the middle of a big city for an event, and so far everything seems to have gone very smoothly,” said the double Olympic gold medallist Mark Todd, a New Zealander. “Normally, we are stuck out on a limb miles away at an Olympics, so it’s nice to be part of it.”

The British multiple Olympic eventing gold medalist William Fox-Pitt was also enthusiastic. “Wow, it has an Olympic feel already and this is just a test event,” he said.

Not everyone in the equestrian world has been so positive. Mark Phillips wrote in Horse & Hound recently: “We are all excited about going to Greenwich for the test event, but for the Brits it will be a little poignant as the post-Olympics legacy will be nothing like the facilities we are seeing elsewhere.”

Others believe the £42m being spent to stage the events in Greenwich Park, in common with a temporary venue strategy that will see beach volleyball take place in Horse Guards Parade and shooting at the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich, would be better spent leaving a legacy of permanent facilities.

But Richard Davison, captain of the Team GB dressage team, said the pluses would far outweigh the minuses.

“It’s great to see it come alive. It’s going to be a beautiful venue,” said Davison.

“Normally, the horse parks are 40 minutes out of town. They are way out in the sticks. This is phenomenal. So far, every international observer or rider has said it’s amazing.”

Source guardian.co.uk

Nancy Jaffer/The Star-Ledger

Freestyle Dressage Growing In Popularity

When the dressage musical freestyle debuted in the Olympics at Atlanta in 1996, it was a huge step forward for the discipline. With that high-profile event serving as inspiration, the addition of music at many shows helped dressage soar to popularity from being a sport that bored all but its most avid spectators (the common assessment used to be that it was “like watching paint dry.”) Imagine a tango dancer without a soundtrack.

Such is the demand now that at the Olympics and other championships, the freestyle tickets are among the hardest to obtain. Even at the lower end of the scale, music adds the magic to dressage. The freestyle enables riders to showcase what their horses do best, instead of following in the hoofprints of everyone else who is performing the same test, whether it’s Third Level or Grand Prix.

Randy Leoni wants to capitalize on that as she takes the next step in her presentation of “an evening of freestyles” that she has put on for the last two years in conjunction with shows at her Hawk Hollow Ranch in Bedminster.

This year, she is staging it at the U.S. Equestrian Team Foundation in Gladstone, along with a two-day dressage show July 6-7.

“I want to turn it into an event. This is the first time I’m doing this show at the Team, because I’m thinking if I do it at the Team, I’ll ultimately be able to get some sponsorship and be able to offer prize money. I can’t do that at home with a small show,” said Leoni.

She hopes next year it will be a more lavish affair, held in conjunction with a cocktail party, and has plans for increasing its scope.

Although the show will feature two rings during the day, there will be just one ring for the freestyle evening, which will begin about 4 p.m. July 7 and run through all the levels. Among those competing will be Pan American Games team gold and individual silver medalist Lauren Sammis of South Orange and well-known trainers Heather Mason of Tewksbury and Sara Schmitt of Pittstown, both U.S. Dressage Federation gold medalists.

There is no admission charge. People can bring their own picnics or buy something to eat from the In Thyme caterer, which provided the food for the VIP tent at last year’s national dressage championships. Leoni, who has handled the hospitality at USET events for 25 years, hopes that her show can be on a weekend in the future, which would help maximize attendance.

“People love to show at the Team and people love to go there for events,” said Leoni, who wants it to be as successful for spectators as it is for exhibitors. One thing that helps is the cachet of the historic venue, which can’t be overestimated; it hosts numerous events put on by everyone from the U.S. Equestrian Federation to a variety of smaller organizations.

“The Hamilton Farm facility has been an important part of the community, and our United States Equestrian Teams for 50 years,” said the federation’s executive director, Bonnie Jenkins.

“Upgrades and improvements have recently been made to the competition arenas, providing a world class facility for high performance training sessions, national championships, selection trials, Pony Club Camps and a host of other local equestrian competitions. No matter what discipline or level of riding, Gladstone is a special place, where we welcome riders and equestrian supporters to come and enjoy.”
“It’s an enchanting place,” agreed eventer Sinead Halpin of Branchburg, who is having a benefit cocktail party there July 28.

“You walk in and it’s got every bit of history and every bit of nostalgia that goes along with that. It’s a really beautiful venue; you feel part of the venue,” she said.

Halpin is hoping to raise funds for several worthy causes as well as her trip to the British 4-star Burghley event in September with Manoir de Carneville. She finished third with him as the highest-placed American at the Rolex Kentucky 4-star last month.

The party, billed as “An Evening at the Team,” will feature eventing team veterinarian Brendan Furlong as a speaker. Halpin plans to do her 4-star dressage ride at the place her event poster calls, “The Heart of American High Performance Horse Sports.”

This has been quite a week for Halpin, who was selected to be an observer at next month’s test event for the 2012 Olympics in London.

“I’m super-excited,” said Halpin, who also just made the “A” national eventing high performance training list and dreams of riding in the Olympics. She is ranked eighth in the U.S. Eventing Association Rider of the Year standings, while Manoir de Carneville is first in the Horse of the Year standings.

“It’s a whole brand-new experience and it would be helpful to have already gone there once and know what the venue is,” she said of her July trip to London.

Also on the “A” list are Will Faudree, Boyd Martin and veteran Phillip Dutton. All will be working with coach Mark Phillips in preparation for the Pan American Games and Olympics.

Named to the “B” list is Doug Payne of Gladstone, who had previously been on the developing roster. Payne’s top mount at the moment is Running Order, owned by Patti Springsteen. He hopes to take the Irish former steeplechaser to the 3-star in Blenheim, England, this fall and then to Rolex Kentucky in the spring as he bids for the Olympics.

“Realistically, it seems like he has a pretty good shot at it. A lot of things have to go right and it’s a long time from now, but it’s a good position to be in right now,” said Payne, tied for sixth in the USEA rider standings. Running Order is fourth in the Horse of the Year standings.

Doug Payne and Running Order
Payne has a number of promising horses, but he also had some bad luck this spring. For instance, he was second in the 1-star after cross-country at the Bromont, Canada event earlier this month with Camerlingo, but the gelding twisted an ankle and was not presented for the final horse inspection. He expects Camerlingo to be fine for the Fair Hill International this fall, however.

“In a year’s time, we should have three or four advanced horses going,” he said.

“I’ve got a couple of exceptional nice young horses. The most exciting one I’ve got is Royal Tribute, an Oldenburg/thoroughbred cross, who did his first Training last week at Bucks County.”

Payne owns half of the horse; Kristen Burger owns the other half. He is very excited about the 17.3-hand horse, who was a champion as a 3-year-old. While Royal Tribute seems to have potential for the top ranks, it will be a long wait. Payne said the 2014 World Equestrian Games might be a little soon; more likely he’d hit the international championships at the 2015 Pan American Games or the 2016 Olympics, if all goes well. With eventing, you have to plan far ahead.

Source nj.com/sports

By Pippa Cuckson

A senior equestrian official recently berated me for not reporting Laura Bechtolsheimer’s four wins at an early season dressage show in Europe.

But Laura is a multiple world and European silver medallist and, in the absence of many other big-hitters, the only newsworthy thing would have been her failure to sweep the board that weekend.

Dressage, it seems, has not fully registered that the dynamic has dramatically changed following Britain’s rapid evolution from under-horsed get-rounders to dressage super-power within the space of a single Olympiad.

On current form, British dressage seems even more of a nap for a medal in London than eventing, especially as the two main rivals, Holland and Germany, are marginally weaker too.

After the World Equestrian Games last October the Dutch lost top-scorer Moorlands Totilas in a lucrative but perhaps cynical sale to Germany. Seven months on, “Toto’s” new rider Matthias Rath has yet to compete internationally with the equine star, never mind prove that they have gelled.

Heightened expectations will put unusual pressure on the British dressage squad at the 2011 European championships in Rotterdam and at Greenwich next year, but they are up to the challenge. In previous eras, the dressage quartet tended to pick itself and was resigned to languishing around seventh or eighth out of 10 participating teams.

Nowadays a dozen British horse and rider combinations are capable of scoring around the 72 per cent needed to stay in touch of a team medal.

Aside from our 2010 world silver medal-winning squad of Bechtolsheimer (Mistral Hojris), Carl Hester (Liebling II), Fiona Bigwood (Wie Atlantico) and Maria Eilberg (Two Sox), both Bechtolsheimer (Andretti H) and Hester (Uthopia) have second strings stepping up to the plate; former dual European bronze medallist Emile Faurie (Elmegardens Marquis), Germany-based Emma Hindle (a choice of three or four) and Anna Ross-Davies (Pegasus MK) are on target with new equine partners and there is excitement about the relatively untried Nikki Crisp (Pasoa) and Charlotte Dujardin (Valegro), who in January became the first Brit to score 74 per cent on her debut Grand Prix and has since beaten Hester, her boss and mentor.

It’s ironic, therefore, that the 2012 team can only contain three riders, with no scope to discard a low fourth score as in the past. The reduction in participants arises from the International Equestrian Federation’s (FEI) determination to keep this esoteric discipline accessible to 21st century audiences with a declining attention span.

Other format changes such as the freestyle test to music drew a younger generation of riders and uber wealthy horse-owners into dressage; innovation could now be working to the slight disadvantage of the talent pool it helped create in the UK, though team management still hopes to get a fourth rider into the individual contest.

A more radical change for the Olympics is that the team medal will be decided by the combined scores of two set dressage tests – the Grand Prix and a modified Grand Prix Special – fought out over three days.

Historically, Grand Prix has decided the two-day team contest, with the Special only ridden by those progressing to the individual final.

This may provide further dilemmas for selectors, as some horses are better suited to one test or the other; equally, some brilliant but excitable horses ‘blow’ on the first day of a championship, but settle by the third day and start scoring big marks.

Whether the penny has dropped amongst spectators also remains to be seen. Amid all the speculation about ticket ballot success, the big question for dressage fans is whether they correctly identified the podium day in the first place!

The Bramham International has always been a reliable step-up for future Olympic eventing horses; last year’s winner, Redesigned, went on to finish fifth with Pippa Funnell, just two penalties off a medal, at last year’s world games on his debut championship appearance.

This weekend’s running (June 2-5) has even more resonance as riders scramble to get Olympic eligibility qualifications in the bag. No matter who you are, everyone had to start from scratch on January 1; seventy-seven horses run in Bramham’s principal three-day event, 36 in the under-25s and 41 in the supporting one-day international, which can also count.

To some this urgency may baffle, as riders only need a maximum of two 3-star international results per horse and the cut-off point is June 17, 2012. But as this week’s injury scare with the Queen’s Derby hope Carlton House has shown, anything can go wrong with the most cosseted of equine athletes. An ancient equestrian adage says there’s always another day for a horse, but reality is different.

William Fox-Pitt rides two at Bramham and if they complete without error it will bring his total of horses already qualified for London 2012 to six and a half – a staggering achievement for this stage of the season, even by the ambitious standards Fox-Pitt sets for himself.

Meanwhile, Mary King has qualified four, thanks to good Badminton placings and a historic one-two at the Kentucky four-star the following week. She can now turn her attentions safely(ish) to increasing her series lead in the lucrative HSBC Classics. With this sort of equine arsenal behind them, this evergreen duo must surely have already bagged their berths at Greenwich?

Source blogs.telegraph.co.uk