WEG 2010 - Final Report

Hi all
I am sorry this final report has taken so long but for some reason my computer keeps eating it. So as I fly home I shall type a word document and see how we go.

The other reason it has taken a while is that once my competition was finished I stopped having my own room and started to share with my favourite wonder women, double bronze medallist Sharon Jarvis.

EA not at all unreasonable only pay for our accommodation until 2 days after we finish competing. My comp was of course all over by the end of the 1st week where as Sharon didn’t compete until the 2nd week. Sharon prefers company in her room so when she asked if I could possibly share. As you can imagine I was delighted.

To our tidy friends (Julie) the concept of us sharing would be VERY scary as neither of us are what you might call neat. I would like to point out that I am actually tidier than Sharon. This may however be as I moved into her room and there was not much space left for me to be untidy in!

So the latest on Jag.

As many of you will now know Jag while on XC suffered a puncture wound to the front of his right hind fetlock. Something (and I suspect it was a piece of brush at the main water) punctured straight through his boot and into the joint. The vets tell me he must have been jumping at the time for the fetlock to have been flexed to allow the object to penetrate the joint.

Basically he was running super and up on the clock until we jumped fence 17 and 18 which was the 2nd and 3rd water jump. As we left the second water where he had not jumped the Normandy bank well I put my foot on the accelerator and realised for the first time in all the years I have run Jag that there were no gears.
This was not a great feeling as there were some very big fences to come and I knew that the team was 1 rider down after the unfortunate injury to Pauls horse. Hence I backed off a bit and concentrated on nursing him home.

He was quite brilliant at the angled houses which were fence 23 and 24. As he jumped the first I knew he was struggling I contemplated pulling him off but as it walked 1 stride I had one of those moments where I sort of felt that to try and turn might actually bring him down. So I sat as still as I could and said a quick pray. Brilliant old man he is he banked it.

Anne Taylor told mum and dad that he actually banked it with thought and did it quite lightly.  When I left the start box Patch had asked me what was I going to do at the 3rd last, which was the 2 big ditch brush’s. I had replied that if I was up on the clock I would option. Then I said I may option anyway.

When I got there I had no option in my mind of going straight. I well knew Jag was running on heart and heart alone so option it was. As I finished my first comment to Patch  and Bear was exactly that. It was only Jags incredible heart that brought us home. I also said we would never ask him to do that again.

So 7.2 time over. I was not super happy about the time but I couldn’t think of any thing I could have done to fix that. I was just so pleased I had Jag home in what we thought was one piece.

At the cool down Jag was great. Heart rate and temp were good and he was VERY full of his own importance. Pushing Nat around and wanting grass.

Nat told me to stay and support the others as he appeared fine and Potsy the other vet was back at the stables running the fluids and looking after the horses. (Don’t  ever assume it is glamorous for the vets. Potsy watched nothing all day not even the closed circuit he just looked after our horses)

Anyway I stayed and watched including Stuarts absolutely beautiful round on Vettori then headed back up to Jag. Nat had on return to the stable found a very small wound on the front of his fetlock. Potsy had cleaned it and put an animallintex on it.  No one was particularly worried. I was told that on return to the stables he had been a little off in front but nothing that looked like a real problem.

So we pulled him out to jog up and he was bright. Absolutely fine in front but a little off  in his right  hind. We all assumed it was the small cut so we popped him in his box and set about getting stuff to reclean it..  In the next 20 or so minutes while we got organised Jag went from not bad to unable to put the foot to the ground. It truly was that quick. Being quite so quick we all thought it may be a septic joint.

On 3 legs Jag hobbled to the vet clinic (about 50 m) where they x-rayed it. That was clean so they tapped the joint. The fluid that came out was the colour of bloody puss. A quick test and it was discovered his White Blood Cell count (WBC) was 160 000. A joint is considered to be septic with a count of 20 000. We had one BAD joint. As the team was at this stage out of the competition we immediately organised for him to be taken off venue to Rudd and riddle to have the joint flushed. Poor Jag had 3 general anaesthetics’ in the next 36 hours to flush the joint.

AS you can imagine it was not a good time for me or anyone else that knows Jag. By Wednesday he was able to return to the grounds, which improved my week considerably.  Jag was well on the way to recovery by the 9th of October and allowed to go with the other horses to Quarantine. Amy who grooms for Stuart has stayed with the horses and I know he is in very good hands. His temperature was normal when I flew out and he is sound having had no medication since the 9th. Fingers crossed we are hopefully out of the woods.

The horses fly out of the states on the 30th of October to New Zealand where they will quarantine until the 29th of November.  It is much cheaper to do it there than in Australia. So on the 29th I shall be waiting in Sydney to pick him up and bring both him and Ben home. Cant wait to have them both back with me.

So enough of the saga of Jag lets move onto happier subjects ….. like Sharon’s 2 medals.

Sharon did 3 tests. A teams test then an equivalent to the special followed by a Kur. In all 3 tests Sharon was 3rd. The Para guys are just amazing. They tend to be constantly happy. I heard one of them say that it was an inspiration to them to be competing where the other disciplines’ were. I said it was to me an inspiration to be watching them as let me tell you a lot of them can really ride. One girl has no legs and rides with no ties to the saddle at all she just sits there in this amazing balance.

After Sharon’s Kur we had a day of stress. Some how the arena had been made 4 m to long.  It was the same for all competitors but a competitor who had not placed protested and wanted a rerun.  It was suggested a rerun be held Saturday night. This of course did not suit Sharon at all as Oddie was going into Quarantine Saturday arvo. Fortunately sense prevailed and the placing stood. However as they didn’t make a decision until about 10pm on the Friday it rather took the gloss off it for Sharon.

All the Ozzies gave it their best shot but they were all (including Sharon) completely out horsed. There were I am told 4 grand prix level horses in the grade 4. The winning horses were truly fabulous types. The Brits who cleaned up have major money behind them.  One parent was heard to comment how hard it was as they only get 60 000 pounds per year from the sports people. As you can imagine my heart bled for them. I don’t know how we get these guys on better horse flesh it is I think purely in the short term a money thing. Something none of them have much off.

THE DRIVING

I must say other than staying to support Sharon one of the main reasons I wanted to stay and watch after I finished was the driving. I have always been intrigued by the sport and joked that it is what I would like to take up when I retire. Having watched it I don’t think it is a retirement sport. It is very much as I described it EVENTING ON SPEED.

Wow it is amazing. Australia had to drivers Gavin and Boyd. Basically a team for a country consists of 2 teams of 4. Each team of 4 does a dressage test in a 40 x 100 m arena. The test they did is all done at walk and trot. However it includes a number of movements we do in the 3* eventing test such as dog leg medium trots and shoulder in f to B then medium to H. Yes I do mean shoulder in. The lead pair do shoulder in while the wheelers go straight. Apparently it is something to do with using the outside trace as your outside leg. Work that one out!

Anyway Gavin on the Thursday did a  test that had him 7th on that day, then Boyd came out and did a rip snorter of a test. Boyds team is all black. 2 of the horses are dressage bred. 1 is a trotter warm blood cross and oh boy can it move. Not sure of the breeding of the 4th horse. So these 4 black horses with an elegant carriage, Boyd and his 2 grooms dressed to the 9s performed what I am told was a world record test for driving. He gained a little over 81%. I would like to get the DVD of it as to me it was a great show of beauty and horsemanship.

The Saturday was marathon day. Having now read the rules it appears there are long and short format marathons. WEG was a short format event. This means they did section A which is roads and tracks followed by section D which is a walk section (and you get penalties if you trot more than 5 seconds) then a 10 minute halt where the horses are cooled out followed by the obstacle section.

I was lucky enough to get to help in the cool down box. I enjoy helping at thing like that as you get to learn more. Basically it is much the same as a cool down for an eventer as in the aim is to get the temperature and heart rate down. The big difference is that where as you can get to all of an eventer you can only get to 1 side of these horses as they stay “put to” in the carriage. The other thing is of course they have blinkers so cant see you so you have to be extra careful. It also meant I was able to sit and watch the closed circuit with people who really understood the sport.

Basically the obstacle phase consists of 8 obstacles. I am sure to do this sport well you need a strong interest in puzzles and a degree in orienteering as the obstacles have something like 6 “gates” that you have to pass through in a specified order. Once you have been through a gate it becomes “dead” so you can pass through it with out penalty if you need to. There are long and short routes through the gates and then there are the penalties.

From the time a driver enters the obstacle he is timed until he leaves. Penalties are awarded at a rate of 0.2 penalties per second. They also get 10 penalties if one of the 2 grooms falls off and penalties for dislodging a ball. Being close to the teams as they do the obstacles is a buzz. You can just feel the power of the team and the ground certainly thunders.

Anyway Gavin did a great team round that combined with Boyd’s 3rd place in the marathon but Australia less than a point behind the team in the bronze medal position going into the final day of cones.

Like the eventers the driving horse have trot ups. The 1st trot up is in hand while the 2nd is in harness. The drivers have a spare horse that they can substitute if one is lame. Fortunately all of the Ozzie horses were good. Gavin didn’t have quite the round he wanted but Boyd had a little time and even though he was only about 8th in the cones it was enough to see him win. Go Ozzie.

It must be an amazing feeling to stand on the podium and listen to your national anthem being played because of something you have done. It is certainly high on my list of things to do. Well done Boyd.
So after the excitement of all that it was time for the closing, which was spectacularly boring, so Sharon and I adjourned with friends to the champagne tent to celebrate her and Boyd’s medals and that was WEG 2010 over and done.

Monday mum and dad flew out for home while we finished packing everything up. Tuesday Sharon and the Para team flew out while I went to Cincinnati to have a look around before jumping on a plane for home on Wednesday. I would have liked to go earlier but all flights were full.

So now its off home via the CIC at Brookleigh where I shall watch 3 horses I ride compete then it will be straight into weaning lambs, classing up the sheep ready for joining, shearing, hay making and generally working out how to make my performance even better for London 2012!

Cheers
Sonja