Clark Montgomery had a great outing with Loughan Glen at The Dodson & Horrell Chatsworth International Horse Trials CIC*** on May 14-15 where they finished ninth against some tough company, but his week took a sad turn as his groom Karen Hughes died after a battle with cancer on May 16.

Karen was amazing. She worked right up until she just absolutely couldn’t, which was about five weeks ago. She literally just could not come in to work. We wanted her to do whatever she wanted to do, and coming to work every day is what kept her going this long.

We hired her as soon as we got here at the beginning of 2013. She was phenomenal with the horses. It’s very difficult to find people like that with the relentless dedication that she had. She just lived for it. Everything that she was went to these horses and they loved her for it.

She was unbelievably soft spoken. That’s the way she was around the horses. She worked for years for Bettina and Andrew Hoy, about 16 years. The majority of her career was with those guys, then from there she worked for Yoshiaki Oiwa. She went to the London Olympics with him. From there she worked for Harry Meade for a little bit, then she came to us.

Clark Montgomery (right) celebrating a win with groom Karen Hughes. Photo courtesy of Clark Montgomery

It won’t be the same without her. She was incredible. She was everywhere with Glen. She’s been at every single event. Starting this season she stopped coming to the shows with us, and only because she physically couldn’t come.

[Our current groom] Sally Robertson came on board with us last summer just after Bramham in preparation for this happening. Karen’s been sick for a long time, and she was in remission, and it came back. We knew unfortunately this day would be here at some point, so we had Sally there and ready.

It was unbelievably hard for her to even allow Sally to take over this season. They’re her ponies, so that was quite difficult.

Much of my success in getting Glen back on track had a lot to do with her helping me figure this all out.

A Solid Run At Chatsworth

[In between Belton and The Dodson & Horrell Chatsworth International Horse Trials CIC***], Glen hasn’t been doing much. I backed off him a bit with a lot more stretchy work and not a whole lot of galloping.

We didn’t do any show jumping and no cross-country schooling. I took him over to a local dressage schooling place and just rode him around on a loose rein.

You don’t need to drill him, it’s just keeping him happy. 

It was great. He’s super fit, which is fantastic. He’s come out this season just a beast. All he’s wanting to do is run and jump, which is just phenomenal.

[For dressage] he warmed up beautifully this time and went in, and it’s almost like he thinks he knows the test. We got to X and he just went to halt, instead of at L, then the first medium he was tight coming out of the corner and broke. In the counter canter, he thinks he should go ahead and do the flying change when he shouldn’t. But everything in between was better than Belton. He’s still improving. The test had a lot of 8s, 8.5s and some 9s.

He’s earned himself a few tickets to some dressage shows this month to get ready for Bramham, which is absolutely hilarious because I’ve never had to do that with him before. We’ll go and do a couple of different tests that he doesn’t know and make sure he gets a bit softer.

It’s not to drill him, but to take him in the arena and take a lot of the pressure off so that he just goes in the ring and starts to be his real soft, happy self again.

It’s amazing to be a part of this Event Rider Masters series. It’s a way I think the sport could potentially go in the future, and to be a part of it this early on is really special. Because of the prize money you’re getting top competition, which is why I entered it, so that I feel the pressure of all those top people. If I’m lucky enough to get to go to Rio, I don’t want to get there and suddenly feel the pressure because I’ve been going to easier shows all year.

The point is for both Glen and I to be in these high-pressure situations as much as possible leading up to that.

To be a part of the series was phenomenal. It was a lot of excitement at the finish line. They had the podium and the big screen, and everybody could watch. It was really coming down to how quickly everybody could go. I think it’s a super series for the sport.

The show jumping [at Chatsworth] can be deceptive. It was a big enough course on grass. Glen jumped fantastic. We got rid of that one annoying rail thing that happened at Belton and it moved him up a bit to fourth.

Clark Montgomery and Loughan Glen in the show jumping at The Dodson & Horrell Chatsworth International Horse Trials CIC***. Photo by Holly Becker

Even more so than the terrain, the ground [on cross-country] didn’t walk soft but it was riding really soft. It was quite punchy. My plan was to go faster than I did at Belton, and that’s deceiving because I had more time penalties than I did at Belton, but I went faster. It doesn’t really make sense, but I attacked the course more because of the terrain.

There were a lot of deep undulations and the ground was not really his terrain. He’s not fit to go that much quicker to be honest. Chris Burton [of Australia on TS Jamaimo] was like the second person in 1,000 starts to go double-clear there, and he was just all-out, which was fun to watch, but that’s a completely different type of horse than Glen.

Walking the course at The Dodson & Horrell Chatsworth International Horse Trials CIC***. Photo by Holly Becker

I went quicker, but it just wasn’t his ground or terrain to be any faster than he went.

He’s come out of it beautifully. We had the physio out a few days after and he’s not even sore anywhere, which you might expect the horses to be on that terrain. He looks phenomenal.

Everything is right on track. The whole strategic plan with his schedule is to peak at the Olympics. I don’t want to peak too soon. For me, my performance at Chatsworth was a bit better than Belton, and I’ve got a little bit of homework to do this month, and I expect it to be a bit better at Bramham [on June 9-12.] 

The terrain at Bramham can be a bit up and down the second half, but it’s not near as bad as Chatsworth, so I’m planning to be a bit quicker there. It’s still only June, and we have another two months before the Olympics.

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.

Read all of Clark Mongomery’s Road To The Olympics entries.

We’re also following:

Show jumper Callan Solem

Dressage rider Laura Graves

Eventer Phillip Dutton and his groom Emma Ford

Show jumper McLain Ward

Dressage rider Kasey Perry-Glass