Riding for the Team: Inspirational Stories of the USA's Medal-Winning Equestrians and Their Horses
288
Riding for the Team: Inspirational Stories of the USA's Medal-Winning Equestrians and Their Horses
288Hardcover
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Overview
From playing with plastic ponies and taking their first riding lessons, to finding success in the arena, thousands of horse lovers hope they can one day represent the United States in international competition. Riding for the Team chronicles the lives of those who dreamed about competing for their country and “made it,” sharing inspirational stories from the international governing organization’s eight equestrian disciplines:
- show jumping
- dressage
- eventing
- driving
- vaulting
- reining
- endurance
- para-dressage
- McLain Ward
- Karen O’Connor
- Debbie McDonald
- Tim McQuay
- Flexible
- Biko
- Verdades
- Gunners Special Nite
Readers are immersed in the fascinating histories of the medal-winning riders, drivers, and vaulters who have dominated American equestrian sport over the past 28 years, such as:
Get the inside scoop on legendary horses who have become household names, including:
Offering exclusive insights, Riding for the Team gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at the world of top-level equestrian sport. Athletes tell their stories and those of their horses during the years they honed their talent and dedicated their lives to representing their country in the Olympics, World Equestrian Games, World Championships, and Pan American Games. Beautifully illustrated with breathtaking photographs from prestigious competitions held around the world, Riding for the Team not only provides a dazzling record of American equestrian accomplishment, it promises to inspire the next generation of champions.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781570768729 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Trafalgar Square |
| Publication date: | 10/29/2019 |
| Pages: | 288 |
| Sales rank: | 527,576 |
| Product dimensions: | 8.60(w) x 11.00(h) x 1.10(d) |
About the Author
Nancy Jaffer is a renowned equestrian photojournalist whose articles have appeared regularly online and in the pages of Practical Horseman and Dressage Today magazines. She has covered nine Olympics and is a contributor to Horse & Hound magazine (UK), Horse International, andIn Stride, and writes the "Due South" column on the Horse Canada website. Jaffer, who has a website www.nancyjaffer.com, wrote a weekly newspaper column on equestrian sports that appeared inThe Star-Ledgerof New Jersey from 1972 until 2015. She is the coauthor ofRiding Throughwith dressage Olympian Debbie McDonald andLife in the Galloping Lanewith eventing Olympians Karen and David O’Connor. She also edited the last USET publication, entitledRiding for America. Nancy makes her home in Peapack, New Jersey.
Read an Excerpt
McLain Ward
The Pathfinder Becomes the Anchor Rider
The son of professional equestrians Barney and Kris Ward, McLain rode before he could walk. Born and trained to be a top show jumper, McLain began fulfilling his destiny early. At age 14, he was the youngest person ever to win the USET Medal Finals East (now the USEF Talent Search Finals East) while taking the team’s Talent Derby in the same year.
At the time he said, “I’ve had so many experiences most 14-year-olds haven’t had. If it continues, I’ll be ahead of the game.” He was right. Those early victories foreshadowed enormous show jumping success. At the age of 24, he became the youngest rider to earn $1 million in his discipline. Eventually, he would rank as number one in the world—an Olympic, World Equestrian Games, and Pan American Games multi-medalist. McLain’s persistence is as legendary as his ability—he took the 2017 FEI World Cup Finals on his seventeenth try at the title.
His horses have included more than a few superstars, including Sapphire—after whom the Grand Prix of Devon is named; Rothchild; his winning World Cup mount, HH Azur; and his 2018 WEG team gold medal ride, Clinta. McLain, his wife, Lauren, and their daughter, Lilly Kristine, live where he grew up, at Castle Hill Farm in Brewster, NewYork.
When I first began competing on the team at championships, Beezie Madden was the anchor rider. That was appropriate, since she is older than I am and had a little more experience at the time. Our international championship careers basically coincided for 15 years. I generally was the lead-off rider and everybody was very comfortable with me as the pathfinder. We were very successful for a long time with Beezie and myself in those roles. I had ridden anchor on a few teams, though not very often.
In 2016, however, there was a transition and I became the anchor and kind of remained in that spot. The qualities you need to go first and those you need to be the anchor rider are sometimes a little bit different, but the order in which you ride for the team is heavily determined by the horse you’re riding. Some horses fill one of those spots better than the other, but you have to be very cool and have a great amount of experience, so that you’ve been in most situations you encounter as part of the team—wherever you ride in the order.
You’re always going to be more successful in the long run if you’ve been in a situation before and can figure out how to handle it. Either way, you understand your job is to jump two clear rounds. That’s all that you are responsible for. You can’t get distracted by other things, and need to be as prepared and ready to go as possible to do that job.
Most people would say there’s more pressure for an anchor rider than a lead-off rider because you understand the consequences of any penalties you accumulate pretty clearly and know what has to be done. You’ve been put in that position because they’re expecting a certain performance from you. The pressure is greater for the anchor rider, but someone who has more experience and been in more positions can bring that to the table. You’re using all that knowledge to be mentally and physically in the right place.
The Rio Olympics was a huge moment. We went into the 2016 Games thinking that with four faults or better in the Nations’ Cup overall, we would win the gold medal. It seemed logical. And then France had what I considered an out-of-body experience that day. Roger Yves Bost went right before me and jumped a clear round to clinch the gold medal.
So there I was, the U.S. anchor rider, walking down the ramp with a focus 100 percent on jumping that clean round and winning that gold medal. Then all of a sudden, that wasn’t possible. It was a blow, but I had only 45 seconds to digest that information and realize that if I had one fence is down, there’s no medal at all. That would have been a very disappointing Olympics for us.
After I went into the ring, I pulled up HH Azur and took a moment to tell myself, “Okay, it’s a little bit disappointing. But now there’s a job to be done, and I have to focus on the things I can control and let the bigger outcome sort itself out.”
The mission had become bringing home the silver, compared to the possibility of no medal and a fifth-place finish. For me, what happened there is a moment I’m very proud of. We delivered and made it happen, and it ended up being a phenomenally successful Olympic Games.