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.

McLain Ward is a two-time Olympic team gold medalist from the 2004 and 2008 Olympic Games, both when riding the legendary mare Sapphire, and jumped on the 2012 London Olympic Games team aboard Antares F. In 2015, he claimed his first individual gold medal by winning the Pan American Games (Toronto) with the 14-year-old chestnut gelding Rothchild.

He thinks he might have found his brightest star when the 10-year-old Belgian Warmblood mare, HH Azur, joined his stable last year. Owned by Double H Farm and Francois Mathy, Azur followed up some big wins last year with victory in the $380,000 Suncast Grand Prix in February and placing second in both the $500,000 Rolex Grand Prix on April 2 and the $500,000 Longines Global Champions Tour Grand Prix of Miami on April 9. Meanwhile, Rothchild won the first five-star of the WEF circuit, the $380,000 Fidelity Investments Grand Prix, before shipping west to California and topping the AIG $1 Million HITS Thermal Grand Prix (Calif).

Ward’s been named to the U.S. team’s short list with both HH Azur and Rothchild.

The season’s going great. The horses are in good form and fresh and—knock on wood—healthy. They’re seasoned horses as well—Rothchild obviously, and now with Azur. We know the horses pretty well and they know the game pretty well, so that helps a lot.

I think when you have the horses that we’re lucky enough to have and the team of people and the owners behind you, with these goals, you certainly envision seasons like this. It doesn’t always go that way. So far, for the most part, things have come off very well.

The plans we have made have worked out in the correct way. We’ve had a couple of near misses, too, but I think when you’re going well, that happens. It’s like knocking putts close to the hole. We have a tendency to look at all the ones that didn’t fall in, but you realize that you have to get close to make the long ones.

We had a plan all season. We finished last year’s season and looked toward 2016 with Rio being the goal, and because Azur was only a 9-year-old horse [last year], which is still somewhat inexperienced, our thought process was to use Florida to build her up and peak her a little bit, or almost peak her, toward the end of Florida, and then to settle down, have a little bit of a rest and cruise through the early part of the summer and then try to peak her again for the Olympics. Whereas when you look at a little bit of an older horse like [Beezie Madden’s potential Olympic mount Cortes C], you’ve done this routine enough to be able to wait until Rio.

It’s just like any athlete. You’re working on developing fitness, muscle tone. Early in the season, a horse is maybe a little fresh or a little less focused, and as the season goes on, you fine-tune the focus, and you start to monitor how much energy they have.

[Azur] is a very energetic, blood horse. What you’ve seen throughout the season is that we’ve slowly and progressively toned that [energy] down a bit and got her focused, really pinpointed her fitness to back that up, and then you see the performance she gave [in the $500,000 Rolex Grand Prix].

HH Azur jumping to second place in the $500,000 Rolex Grand Prix at WEF with McLain Ward. Photo by Kimberly Loushin.

I thought she performed incredibly [in that class]. She’s showing that she’s rounding [into form] fitness-wise. We’re learning all the little idiosyncrasies and those last fine points.

It was a little bit of a shame [that she had the rail] in the jump-off. I wouldn’t have said that she really made a mistake or that I made a big mistake. [That rail] was the only thing she touched on the entire course.

Of course, are there things we could have done slightly differently? Probably, in hindsight, to see how the class worked out. But I think that the horse and myself are so confident that sometimes we try to blow the competition away instead of just trying to beat them. So we have to monitor that a little bit and do what’s necessary, but I’m thrilled with where she is. She’ll go home [to Brewster, N.Y.] and have a nice rest and start again in the spring in Rome.

Working Backward From Rio

Rothchild is certainly an Olympic candidate. I think he’s in as good of form as he’s ever been. It would be a back-up situation compared to Azur.

Azur has younger legs and is just a real freak of a talent. It’s something in a different league, as everybody now can see.

Rothchild is still at the top of his game, and having him and horses like HH Carlos allows you to make choices with a horse like Azur that help them be as great as they can be. I always used to say, and I tell Mr. Harrison [of Double H Farm], and different owners that I’ve had, but Carlos makes an Azur. Goldika 559 makes a Sapphire. These horses do the work, and they carry the load for the star to come out, and they deserve a lot of credit for that.

We went out to Thermal. I enjoy going out to the desert. It’s a nice little business holiday for us. The HITS organization has put up an incredible amount of prize money over the last few years, and we’ve been lucky enough to take quite a bit of it. There was a great course designer out there in Alan Wade. I’m a big fan of his. I think he’s one of the best in the world.

Rothchild knows that game. We went right out into the small class on Friday and then the grand prix on Sunday. The conditions were hot, but that’s very good for him. I thought he jumped really very well. I think he actually came back the next week and jumped even better [in the Great American $1 Million Grand Prix] at Ocala. I made a little error, unfortunately. He really deserved to win both of those classes, but that’s sport.

McLain Ward and Rothchild on their way to the top of the AIG $ 1 Million Grand Prix at HITS Thermal. Photo by Kimberly Loushin.

There are different phases of planning to get ready for an event like Rio. You have long-term plans, yearly and career plans, and then you work backwards from that. You look at the season, the month, the week, the day, and that’s kind of the order we do it.

We had our eye on Rio as soon as [the 2014 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games in] Normandy [were] over. Then Azur came along, and obviously that was very exciting, and that really allowed us to make a very definitive plan toward Rio. Then you work on a shorter goal.

Last summer, we had goals of the Queen’s Cup in Calgary, different grand prix classes that we were going to build up to and try to really use as benchmarks. Azur answered all of those with flying colors. It was no different when we planned out Florida. We sat down after [the Royal Winter Fair in] Toronto, and we really looked at the last six months, how we were going to program Azur, work her and compete her, and what’s going to set her up the best, and that’s how we came up with a strategy.

The Rolex Grand Prix and the Global Champions Tour of Miami were another benchmark in which we were interested to see how she performed, and obviously she performed spectacularly. So that allows you to go into the last stages now into the plan for Rio. It starts long term, and then it gets smaller and into your day-to-day plan. We sit down at the end of the day, and we plan tomorrow.

Mental Strengthening

We have an incredible team of people. I have a stable manager and a team of people that have been with me 30 years, great veterinarians and blacksmiths, and I have more faith in them than I do myself. I have great confidence that everything that can be done to better these horses’ lives and their performances in the ring is being taken care of.

At some point, you have to not become too fixated on how special they are and how delicate they are and just try to do what’s right for them and for their health and what’s right to try to do well in the sport. You could make yourself crazy going any other way.

For myself, the nerves haven’t gotten any less with time—maybe more—but I’ve learned to handle them better. I work at the mental side of it very hard. It didn’t come easy to me.

McLain Ward and Rothchild. Photo by Catie Staszak

I’m not a mellow, laidback, go with the flow kind of guy. I’m a micromanager, and I’m very driven and very upset with myself when I don’t think I perform well. For my personality type, I really have to learn a skill set to try to, as someone once said, “get the butterflies flying in formation.” That’s something I’m actually quite proud of and that I’ve tried to help other people with.

I wouldn’t trade our life for anything, but it isn’t something, on the inside, that’s always as simple or as easy as it appears. Sport is a struggle. It eats at you, and it takes something from you, and it gives you much more in return, of course. But that’s the beauty of our life, and it’s a blessing. Through the ups and downs, particularly the downs, I’ve realized what a blessing that is, so I probably accept it and digest it better than I did when I was younger.

I keep myself moving a little bit to deal with some of those nerves. I bet you I clocked four miles [before the Rolex Grand Prix and 1.50-meter final at WEF], just walking around, sometimes in circles!

McLain’s Fitness Routine

I try to work out every day. I don’t kill myself. I try to do a nice workout in the morning if I have time, and it makes me mentally better as well. I try to watch what I eat. My wife is a great help with that. She’s very disciplined with the eating. I cheat a little bit when she’s not around, but in general, we’re pretty good about that.

I think one of the biggest things for us [as riders] is flexibility and balance, the ability to stay out of the horse’s way. I don’t think I’m physically that strong of a guy, but I think the balance and the leverage is very good. I think that’s important in particular.

[When I work out], I spend about 15 to 20 minutes on the elliptical. I do probably five or six different repetition exercises, and I try to finish with some stretching. Here in Florida, I swim a lot, which I enjoy. We have a pool here—in New York, not so much. We ride a lot and are quite active also on the farm, and I enjoy that. I just keep moving.

We’ve left Florida for New York, and we’re home there for about a month. We do a couple of nice shows up there at Old Salem, and then the horses are off to Rome. The next big show for Azur will be [the CSIO Rome on May 26-29].