PrintIn this series, the Chronicle follows six riders as they seek to fulfill their Olympic dreams in Hong Kong in 2008. Click here to view Karen's first installment from our April 4 issue.
Eventing, like all horse sports, is a humbling endeavor.
[Karen O’Connor and her top advanced mount, Theodore O’Connor, were eliminated at The Fork CIC***-W (N.C.) in early April after incorrectly jumping a corner early in the course.]
I think that there must be 101 ways that you can eliminate yourself in a horse trial, and I’ve never jumped an option incorrectly before, so now I can cross that off the list!
I did that early on in the course, and then I think it took the officials a little while to be sure of my mistake, so I was actually able to make it almost all the way around the course before they flagged me down.
I didn’t know that I’d jumped it incorrectly at the time, and it came as a little bit of a surprise to me, but I only missed the last half-dozen jumps or so. So Ted did get the run in and he ran very well, which was a great preparation for Rolex [Kentucky CCI**** two weeks later, where they ended up finishing sixth], and he’d jumped a very good show jumping round the night before. He was fit as a fiddle and ready to run.
The draw came out for Kentucky, and once again Teddy had drawn No. 1, which I again was OK with, because I always kind of maintain that he’s unique enough that the course is what it is. I don’t much need to see how the courses ride to see how I think it’s going to ride for him.
I thought that he did a pretty good dressage test at Kentucky, and there are some things I’ve got to work on and will be working on shortly just to have him in a better competition frame. I think that I didn’t go for it enough, and I almost made it a little bit boring for the judges, and they’re not going to reward boring! So I’ve got to make sure that if he’s settled and in a good balance and relaxed enough that I go for it. That’ll be important.
I actually did have a lot of anxiety of being capable of recreating his great [cross-country] round from last year, and was again concerned whether I was going to be able to be accurate enough. Obviously, with his successes last year I knew he was quite capable of doing this course and doing it well, but I still had the weight of it on my shoulders because he takes a lot of his confidence and his easiness on the courses from me, so my responsibility hasn’t diminished at all.
And, once again, he gave me an amazing performance. I don’t think he had a bad jump and he did the time very easily. I was probably 20 seconds up a few minutes from home, so I slowed down at the end, and he came in about 8 seconds under the time.
Then I went into the show jumping, and he was having an amazing round. The last line was close to the rail with the crowd of people, and I had the second element down. The crowd made a big noise and sort of broke our concentration. There were few clear rounds, so when we had the second-to-last fence down, it was too bad, but I would have thought that would be OK.
But then with the break in rhythm and concentration, I lost count to the last fence. I kind of made a mess of it, and I had the last fence down myself. It had nothing to do with him. He just couldn’t get out of the mess I put him in. There was a little bit of confusion going down to that one because of the noise. Not to blame the crowd at all, because, my God, he loves his fans! It just was a sudden loud noise that took our moment of concentration.
We haven’t been on him since show jumping day. He’s been doing really well on his holiday, and we’re going to give him one more week off. We have to be careful that he doesn’t gain too much weight with the fantastic Virginia grass [as the O’Connor Event Team has now returned to its home base in The Plains, Va., after spending the winter in Ocala, Fla.], so he’s on limited turnout. He goes out about three hours every morning.
Mandiba Makes An Impression
Other than Red Hills [CIC***-W (Fla.) in March, where Mandiba was eliminated on cross-country], Mandiba’s whole season has been really great. Red Hills just came a little too fast, a little too strong of a course a little too early for him.
And then we dropped him down to do an intermediate before I took him in the CIC*** at The Fork and he [placed] second, and he never looked back. He gave me just a wonderful three events.
Eventing, like all horse sports, is a humbling endeavor.
[Karen O’Connor and her top advanced mount, Theodore O’Connor, were eliminated at The Fork CIC***-W (N.C.) in early April after incorrectly jumping a corner early in the course.]
I think that there must be 101 ways that you can eliminate yourself in a horse trial, and I’ve never jumped an option incorrectly before, so now I can cross that off the list!I did that early on in the course, and then I think it took the officials a little while to be sure of my mistake, so I was actually able to make it almost all the way around the course before they flagged me down.
I didn’t know that I’d jumped it incorrectly at the time, and it came as a little bit of a surprise to me, but I only missed the last half-dozen jumps or so. So Ted did get the run in and he ran very well, which was a great preparation for Rolex [Kentucky CCI**** two weeks later, where they ended up finishing sixth], and he’d jumped a very good show jumping round the night before. He was fit as a fiddle and ready to run.
The draw came out for Kentucky, and once again Teddy had drawn No. 1, which I again was OK with, because I always kind of maintain that he’s unique enough that the course is what it is. I don’t much need to see how the courses ride to see how I think it’s going to ride for him.
I thought that he did a pretty good dressage test at Kentucky, and there are some things I’ve got to work on and will be working on shortly just to have him in a better competition frame. I think that I didn’t go for it enough, and I almost made it a little bit boring for the judges, and they’re not going to reward boring! So I’ve got to make sure that if he’s settled and in a good balance and relaxed enough that I go for it. That’ll be important.
I actually did have a lot of anxiety of being capable of recreating his great [cross-country] round from last year, and was again concerned whether I was going to be able to be accurate enough. Obviously, with his successes last year I knew he was quite capable of doing this course and doing it well, but I still had the weight of it on my shoulders because he takes a lot of his confidence and his easiness on the courses from me, so my responsibility hasn’t diminished at all.
And, once again, he gave me an amazing performance. I don’t think he had a bad jump and he did the time very easily. I was probably 20 seconds up a few minutes from home, so I slowed down at the end, and he came in about 8 seconds under the time.
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Forward Thinking
After Rolex [Ky.] and Jersey Fresh [N.J.], all of our thoughts and plans and everything start to form, based on keeping everything going this summer. The team that stays at home this summer will make a huge contribution to the O’Connor Event Team, because it’s very important that wherever our road’s going to take us, we’ll come back to the next group of horses that’s going to carry on.
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Then I went into the show jumping, and he was having an amazing round. The last line was close to the rail with the crowd of people, and I had the second element down. The crowd made a big noise and sort of broke our concentration. There were few clear rounds, so when we had the second-to-last fence down, it was too bad, but I would have thought that would be OK.
But then with the break in rhythm and concentration, I lost count to the last fence. I kind of made a mess of it, and I had the last fence down myself. It had nothing to do with him. He just couldn’t get out of the mess I put him in. There was a little bit of confusion going down to that one because of the noise. Not to blame the crowd at all, because, my God, he loves his fans! It just was a sudden loud noise that took our moment of concentration.
We haven’t been on him since show jumping day. He’s been doing really well on his holiday, and we’re going to give him one more week off. We have to be careful that he doesn’t gain too much weight with the fantastic Virginia grass [as the O’Connor Event Team has now returned to its home base in The Plains, Va., after spending the winter in Ocala, Fla.], so he’s on limited turnout. He goes out about three hours every morning.
Mandiba Makes An Impression
Other than Red Hills [CIC***-W (Fla.) in March, where Mandiba was eliminated on cross-country], Mandiba’s whole season has been really great. Red Hills just came a little too fast, a little too strong of a course a little too early for him.
And then we dropped him down to do an intermediate before I took him in the CIC*** at The Fork and he [placed] second, and he never looked back. He gave me just a wonderful three events.
