In this series, the Chronicle follows six riders as they seek to fulfill their Olympic dreams in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. We’ll check in with them every few weeks as they pursue a team spot, seeing how they’re getting their horses ready and preparing mentally.

Clark Montgomery moved to England four years ago with his wife Jessica to immerse himself into the competitive eventing scene. 

There were some rough patches along the way, with an elimination at the Aachen CIC*** (Germany) and a retirement on course at the Badminton CCI**** (England) in 2014. But they rebounded and 2015 was a banner year for Clark and Loughan Glen. With two big wins and a crucial four-star completion, Clark and Glen put their names back on the selector’s radars and earned a spot back on the U.S. Equestrian Federation High Performance Training List.

When I moved to England four years ago, the Olympics in Rio was certainly a long- term goal. [The 2014 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games (France)] was also a goal, but that didn’t quite happen. That was a little early, and I had a bit of a learning curve two years ago. But I really feel like now you’re starting to see in my results, especially with Glen, that it benefits us being over here in England amongst these competitors and at these competitions.

I think it’s paying off. If I make it, I will have competed against potentially everybody who will be in Rio, at least at a few competitions. Even though it’s the Olympics, it will seem like just another competition for me since I’ll have seen a lot of the combinations that will be there. 

[The Olympics is] a huge achievement in anybody’s career. It’s always been a lifelong dream of mine to go to the Olympics, and it would just be an indescribable achievement. 

We started out at Belton last year, and he came out superb there and won there. That put us on a bit of a high for the rest of the year. We took that same performance to Lühmühlen and worked hard on our fitness. Getting that four-star completion was quite important for his career and for the Olympics this year.

[The completion] meant everything. Luhmühlen is known to not be the biggest fitness test [because of the terrain,] but technically for the jumping, it’s still a four-star question. It was a good one for him to go to and get the completion. If he wasn’t still going to make that distance there on that flatter ground, then he wasn’t going to be a top horse for me. It was hugely important that we get that done so he could prove that he could be a top horse.

He [finished sixth,] and he was super there. Then I took him back down a level to give him a nice little warm-up and confidence run at the Somerford Park CIC**, which he won. That got us ready for the Blenheim CCI***, and he was a superstar again and won. We didn’t run him too often, which seemed to work well.

Clark Montgomery and Loughan Glen jumping to victory in the 2015 Belton CIC*** (England). Photo by Alex Colquhoun

I do have to run him a little bit more this spring, but with that said, I don’t have to do a CCI, so that should be a nice compromise. 

[This winter] he didn’t get much of a break. We’ve found that if you kind of keep him slowly ticking over through the winter he does much better fitness-wise, rather than putting him out to pasture for a month or two months.

Glen at home. Photo courtesy of Clark Montgomery

I worked quite a bit on his flatwork knowing that by mid-February I would stop doing that as much and go back to doing quite a bit of hillwork, work on the roads and adding in his gallops. Since mid-February we’ve backed off the flatwork training and the jumping, and he’s now been focused more on the hacking, the hills and his gallops to start getting ready for the season.

He gets ridden six days a week, and one of those days is a proper flat school. Maybe one of those days is a jump school, then the other days are dedicated to fitness, whether that be galloping or hacking. I change it up.

We have everything here [at my base at Aston Farm in Tetbury, England,] so we don’t have to ship anywhere to get the fitness work done, which is really nice. There’s a lot of terrain for the hacking, and I think it’s made all the difference in the world to get him fit.

David [O’Connor] has been here three times already, which has been great. It’s just been a couple of lessons on quick trips. He’s really happy with where we are right now and how we’ve come through the winter.

Glen’s not the only one making sure his fitness is on point! 

We were entered at Tweseldown [March 6-9] in the open intermediate. I thought I’d go back there this spring after I waited last year to do Gatcombe, and it was rained out. I thought since Tweseldown runs on sand it would never get cancelled. I never in a million years thought that of all the events, Tweseldown would get rained out—but it did! It’s been a really, really wet winter here.

But last year he didn’t get his first run until Weston Park [in April,] so that’s what will happen this year. He’s on the exact same track he ended up on last year so I’m not too worried. It just gets a bit boring waiting around for an event to do!

He’ll run intermediate at Weston now on April 10.

Then he’ll do the Belton CIC*** the next week, then basically run once a month. The A plan is Belton, then the Chatsworth CIC*** then the Braham CIC***.

David has said I should try to be quite competitive at at least one of those three. Just basically running him quickly on cross-country. It will just be dependent on the weather and the footing.

As options we have Houghton, Hopetoun and Tattersalls, which is in Ireland. That’s a nice thing about being in England, there are so many other options.

I’m not going to do a CCI. By doing that, I actually get to have more practice myself. I wouldn’t do all of those CICs if I was going to do a CCI with him. Still having a lack of advanced horses, it’s better for me to be able to run more often. There’s no doubt that these CICs that I’m picking are quite difficult courses, they just don’t have the length, and they’ll be quite competitive. I think Belton has over 100 horses in the CIC.

Check back with www.coth.com on April 27 to find out how Clark and Glen did at Weston Park and Belton.

Clark’s wife, Jess (right) is his eyes on the ground as he’s prepping Loughan Glen for a run at the Olympic team. Photo by Uptown Eventing