In July, I wrote a column called “Pointers, Policies and Principles–Advice For American Show Jumpers.” Well, this column has a similar theme, except that this time I’m addressing specifically our elite grand prix riders who are on (or want to get on) our USEF computer list.

But repetition is the greatest of all teaching tools.

As I crisscross the country at this time of year to conduct clinics, I can’t help but notice euphoria among our horse community following our Olympic gold and silver medals and our Samsung Super League championship. While this mood pleases me enormously, it also worries me. We Americans (unlike the Germans) often get complacent and relaxed after success. The Germans get nervous and try harder.

Like most countries, save perhaps Germany because of its depth in horses and riders, when you talk of medaling at a championship like next year’s World Equestrian Games in Aachen (Germany), the line is paper thin.

It is very, very difficult (almost impossible) to field a five-member team like we had 22 years ago at the Los Angeles Olympics. Each of those horses had won either an international championship or very big grand prix events on numerous occasions. And a rider of the highest class, possessing vast experience, was riding each horse. Even with best intentions, preparation, participation, and selection, this is hard to do for a championship year.

Believe me, though, next year we’ll try!

Let me say again, I very much like the USEF computer list as a barometer of what is getting done. As I have explained to my riders, trainers, and owners in my forums, this reflects performance that is an indicator of the quality of riders’ programs. Yes, I must admit I do have “pets”–but they’re people and horses who are jumping clear rounds and winning something.

Ambition is the first marker of a successful international rider. Without it, the other points don’t matter much. To be perfectly frank, for a country with the size and assets of ours, I’d like to see more international ambition. With the number of good riders riding grand prix, with our superb training facilities, and with (by far!) the greatest owners in the world, we certainly deserve more depth in horses and riders.

Yes, we do have a small pool of riders who are dying to show abroad on our tours and teams. But there are not enough.

Patrick Caron, the great French chef d’equipe, used to tell his riders that their first obligation was to cultivate owners and to get horses. I know this is a difficult task, but it must be addressed on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis. Owners and good horses just don’t happen. They have to be gathered.

One’s emotional make-up has to be hardened and practiced to withstand pressure. Believe me, the temperature changes radically between even our biggest grand prix events and the FEI World Cup Finals or the Samsung Super League. It’s called turning up the heat. Unlike Germany (the biggest pressure-cooker of all), America is all too often, warm, fuzzy and comfortable. The Russians used to describe their training centers in other sports as “awful,” but they’d say in the same breath, “But awful is good!”

Everything is too easy here. My hat goes off to Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum. She moved, literally, into the pressure-cooker of Germany, came out with nerves of steel, and now jumps Aachen and championships as if they were her local show. This is what emotion is all about: The ability to function at the top of your game under extreme pressure. It is the Germans’ mental and emotional conditioning that makes them champions, not necessarily their methodology.

No one better talk to me about the pressure next summer among our riders in the Super League shows leading up to the WEG selection. It’s good for them. I want it. Emotion is the second marker of a good rider.

A strange phenomenon among great riders is their ability to pick great horses. This, of course, is the selection factor good riders must possess or eventually acquire if they’re to be successful. Very good riders can get the most out of almost any horse. So they often settle for too little, figuring they can make up the difference. But they can’t.

In championship situations, or at the end of any big day, the horse is going to be what he is. The last Olympics were a good example of this. Baloubet du Rouet (Rodrigo Pessoa) and Royal Kaliber (Chris Kappler) were probably the two best horses in Athens. And, at the end of the grueling week, they were first and second.

I know top horses are very, very difficult to acquire. But some of our best riders simply don’t have good enough horses. We all must work and learn our whole lives with horses to develop “an eye for a horse.”

Management of these big-jumping athletes is considerably more sophisticated, detailed and scientific than managing horses on the road going to national horse shows. First of all, it’s a more strenuous sport abroad, and horses have to be fitter. Looking back, Bert de Nemethy’s perfect progressions of
flat work, cavaletti work, gymnastic work, trail riding, and gallops now makes perfect sense. His horses were perfectly managed physically and mentally to be prepared for the rigors of Europe and for the Olympics. He rarely had lame horses and with much, much less doctoring.

Of course, living under FEI rules, which are considerably different than our national rules, often requires different schooling methods, medication, approaches, and, in general, different preparation. Riders, trainers and grooms have to live in a foreign, FEI environment to become proficient in these methods.

No matter what people say or think, it’s very different living and showing abroad. This international management must be learned and practiced regularly.

Management is the next key element. No matter how good a horse you buy or lease, unless he is beautifully managed, he will surely deteriorate. There are always riders in every country who come upon good horses, but you know they will not last. Because they’re not managed well enough.

Every country has lots of talent. That’s why talent is last on this list. Ludger Beerbaum, who’s in the 98-percent bracket in talent, wouldn’t be the superstar he is if he didn’t have ambition, the right emotional constitution, had learned how to manage his horses at the international level, and had developed an eye for selecting horses. Those factors made his talent work, for, at the end of the day, as with horses, talent rises to the top.

My advice? Analyze your weaknesses, appreciate your strengths, and always work on building.

My goal as chef d’equipe is to help realize a more personal depth and a bigger team depth. We can never, never rest.