Phillip Dutton and his head groom Emma Ford have kept themselves busy since we last checked in with him at the end of June. Dutton rode three horses at the Great Meadow International CIC*** on July 8-9—with Fernhill Cubalawn (“Cuba”) he was a member of the winning U.S. Nations Cup team and 19th place. Dutton placed seventh with Fernhill Fugitive (“Jack”) and 15th with Mighty Nice (“Happy”).
Dutton shipped all three horses to the U.S. Training Camp, held the week before the U.S. team flies to Rio at Jacqueline Mars’ Ocala, Fla., farm, but Olympic rings were not in the cards for Fernhill Cubalawn. After a final gallop before shipping to Florida, Cuba came up sore and on further examination was found to have strained a tendon.
Dutton’s reserve horse, Mighty Nice, stepped up to fill Cuba’s slot, and with Fernhill Fugitive as the new reserve, both horses shipped to camp in Ocala while Cuba is laid up at the farm in Pennsylvania recuperating. We checked in with Dutton and Ford two days into their team training camp to see what final steps they’re taking and how they’re feeling as they near the end of their road to Rio!
On Fernhill Cubalawn’s injury
Dutton: That was obviously disappointing—he’s been such a consistent horse. He’s never had a cross-country fault with me, and he’s always put in good performances in the dressage and show jumping. It’s fair to say he really earned his spot.
But after the final gallop he just had a little bit of a tear in the top part of his tendon. It’s not very serious; it should heal quickly, but it wasn’t something we could push on with. He needs some time to get on with that, so one horse’s misfortune is another’s lucky break, Happy [Mighty Nice] will go in Cuba’s place.
Phillip Dutton on Mighty Nice at the Great Meadow CIC***. Photo by Lindsay Berreth
It’s kind of ironic, because last time I went to Rio was for the Pan Am Games, and Bruce Duchossois’ horse Connaught was my first choice, and the same thing happened to him, he got a slight injury on the last gallop so he didn’t actually get to go, whereas now Bruce’s horse gets to go [the late Bruce Duchossois owns Mighty Nice].
Ford: Cuba is going to be laid up for a while. He’ll obviously come back but the injury was just extremely bad timing, and we feel very bad for the owners [Tom Tierney, Simon Roosevelt and Caroline Moran]. They’ve supported him so far to have this happen, but unfortunately it is horses, and nothing’s certain.
He strained a tendon, and nothing really showed up until the final gallop before we left the Thursday. We did a final gallop and that evening we went to check them all over and he didn’t jog up so well. It was very gutting, but we are very fortunate to also have Happy and Jack [Fernhill Fugitive] in the running, but doesn’t make it any easier for the owners that have backed Cuba this far.
Happy is enjoying it down here at camp, he’s being a really good boy. I’m not sure he knows exactly what’s going on, but he’s got to put his big boy pants on now to step in for Cuba.
Mighty Nice at training camp in Ocala.
On Mighty Nice’s performance at Great Meadows
Dutton: He went really well there. In layman’s terms he’s really starting to understand the sport.
He’s always been a little bit of a hot and nervous horse, and now he’s more laidback about it and starting to understand his job and relaxing more in the dressage and show jumping, in particular.
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Even walking to the start box in cross-country has always been a little bit of a hazardous time for us, and he walked in pretty much on his own at Great Meadow. We’ve always got Richard Picken there on standby if something goes wrong, but at the moment he seems to be really understanding each phase and being more focused about it, so I’m excited about the way he’s going and confident and just going to keep going with it.
Ford: Phillip was very happy with how all three of the horses went at that stage before a major championship. We know we’ve got to work on the dressage, and he did not want to run Happy or Cuba for time at Great Meadow because that doesn’t benefit those horses.
Jack you can run for time—he’s just that sort of the horse that needs to go out and run fast and remember what cross-country is about.
With Cuba and Happy, you run them fast once and they can get a bit wild for the next one! You have to save it for when you need it, but then they all show jumped really well which is great, because obviously we’ve been working really hard on that (see last post), so we’re very happy with that, and I think it just gives Phillip more confidence in how to warm them up for that phase as well.
On the U.S. Team Training Camp
Dutton: Brook Ledge shipped the horses to camp [in Ocala]; they arrived Saturday [July 23] around lunchtime. They had their own truck so they had a great transport down and plenty of room.
We did a little bit of a light flat on Sunday, and then today we went through our dressage test with Jeanne McDonald and she critiqued the test and tried to give us some pointers on how we could shave off extra points. During the week they got a gallop, another dressage session and one jumping session and then the horses fly out on Friday.
Camp is good. It’s quite small, we just have six riders here and a few more horses and we start very early in the morning. As soon as the suns up they’re getting the horses ridden during the coolest part of the day. Obviously it’s hot but we’re finished pretty early so the horses can chill out during the day. Everyone is watching each other and riding together, it’s been a pretty encouraging camp so far.
Ford: For my two horses, Jack gets to go out for a few hours in the morning. We tend to start at 5:30 a.m., and he’ll be out in a paddock by 6:00, and then Happy actually still goes out overnight down here, so he comes in at 5:30, 6 o’clock in the morning. There’s good grass here and as long as the bugs aren’t crazy and he’s got friends around him he’s very happy to go out. For him, that’s important—to keep Happy’s brain happy!
Phillip’s done riding them around 10:00 and we just let them chill in their stalls once they’ve been cooled out properly. Then we feed lunch around 11 and we try to leave them alone a bit, and then 2 o’ clock-ish we’ll do afternoon chores. Some of them get a massage blanket, and then we try and feed between 3 and 3:30 and leave them alone again. Then depending on how hot it is whether we turn them out around 6:30 or maybe leave it to 8 o’ clock. I might turn Jack out for another half hour just so he’s out of the stall again, and Happy goes out overnight.
It’s a great team here, and all us grooms definitely get to hang out, but it’s amazing how much work you can find to do even with just two horses here! We do also have to remember to take a step back and leave the horses alone, though, so you’re not in their face all the time.
On traveling and settling into Rio
Dutton: When we get to Rio, the first thing we do is analyze how the horses have traveled and recovered from the flight and let them adjust to their new surroundings. Generally the first day is more about a lot of walking around, stretching legs and more stretching kind of work.
Depending on the running order with two days of dressage, I’ll work back from what I’ll need to do to get the best test out of him. Generally I’d like to have one day, maybe the day before he goes, to go through the test and make sure that we’re good there. Then on the day of the event I just more or less school and prepare him for the test rather than running through it.
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Ford: The horses actually go down to Miami on Friday and then fly very early Saturday morning. I want to say they get in at 3 p.m. to Rio. The grooms that are not shipping with the horses are going to fly out overnight on a red-eye and beat the horse there.
There are actually strict regulations on who can go in the plane with the horses, so a vet is flying, Lauren Kieffer’s groom, Shannon, is going, and then a professional flying groom. Normally in the past we’ve met them at the airport and taken them off the tarmac, but this year apparently we just have to wait at the venue and we’ll meet the horses at the venue.
It’s all happening so fast! We were saying this morning that you feel like you’ve been planning this for four years and then all of the sudden you have no time—it’s on you!
I’ve seen some of the different articles about concerns for the facilities in Rio. We know the federation is over there doing as much as they can to make it a smooth transition, so you just go with the flow and hope everything goes well. When you come across the problems, then you have to deal with them.
I think you would drive yourself crazy if you keep thinking of all the things that could go wrong and try and plan for them!
We’re very excited to go, and hopefully we can do the United States proud and bring home some medals. That’s the plan anyway!
In this series, the Chronicle followed six riders as they sought to fulfill their Olympic dreams in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. We checked in with them every few weeks as they pursued a team spot, seeing how they got their horses ready and prepared mentally.
Read all of the Road To The Olympics with Phillip Dutton and Emma Ford
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