Team Training

It’s the start of another year and it’s the start to another Eventing season for us and many others. The sport which craves so much time effort and money. The sport which many husband or wife, boyfriend or girlfriend, find themselves substituted for an equine partner. But, then I gave it a little thought, is it just “this” sport that we are deprived from our loved ones from March to November, or is it in fact all sports that need a modicum of dedication, a pinch of effort? I recently met a team of professional cyclists who are sponsored by a small bank in Denmark for a large amount of money. Once I had got over how painfully skinny these guys where and how tight their shorts were, I discovered that they spoke the same language as my wife. No, they weren’t on drugs? But, yes they all spoke about dedication, passion, hard work and long stories on how they swerved attacking dogs, how they got blisters the size of small countries and dodged mad French men so that they could compete in the greatest cycling competition on the planet. Ok, delete cycling and cut and past horse in front of the word “competition” and hey presto, it’s the same thing, give or take a French man or two.

So that why On the 21st we joined the Danish eventing team, Lærke Larsen, Peter Flarup and May- Britt Kattrup and Malene Foyers, for a spot of “team training”. Organised by Christian Binder the chef de quipe of the Danish Eventing team, the first exercise was to get to Luhmühlen in Germany. The second exercise was “team building” with Rasmus Bagger who is the team sports psychologist. This involved many exercises including a rope puzzle that Malene & Lærke excelled at apparently. I say apparently, as at this point in the proceedings, Lærke’s partner, Torben and myself were making sure that the Germans had not lost their ability to brew good beer. It must also be said that May-Britt showed much dedication to her other team members, as she was the only team member with out a horse, due the fact that it was already in France in preparation for 3 star competition at Fontaineblau

The weekend was split into a couple of training sessions. One being a dressage test, which was performed in front of Anne-Mette Binder who is an international judge, the other was jump training with Andreas Dibowski (team Gold medallist 2008 Olympic Games)

The test riding in front of Anne-Mette was, in my opinion, fantastic. Purely because of the feed back at the end of the day, what better way to find out about your dressage test, than from the judge. Often these days we train so hard on many differing aspects to produce the horse in a correct fashion. It’s a bit like making soup, you work hard to have all the correct ingredients; specially grown organic onions that where imported from small village near Madrid and the hand reared chicken which was raised by a tribe of women specialists in avian production. At the end of the day you need to be able to put all this together, otherwise you will find yourself starring at a fat chicken floating amongst a sea of vegetables? So, for those competing, there is a “bottom line” and that’s the judges’ decision – and that’s why this was such a great idea for team training.

The other adorning fact within this session was the ability for the team members to critic them selves and others in a positive fashion due to a rather splendid video which was made on the day. Raising questions on varying issues, the team found the dialogue from Anne-Matte to be of great value.

In the afternoon of this rather wet Sunday in Germany, we commenced the show jumping training with Andreas Dibowski. With the normal efficiency that the Germans are tagged with, all the jumps where set up in the riding all at Luhmühlen, leaving us bystanders, nothing better to do than to spectate. It was clear from the start that Dibowski was very dogmatic in his ways. There was definitely none of the usual “Corporate Nordic” here, with semi casual business attire, jeans, blazer and brown shoes. Nor were there any of the socialist committee meetings, that the Scandinavians have found them selves so accustomed to these days. Which resulted in the afternoon passing on like Swiss train, smoothly and on time. However, to their credit, the team jumped to it and reacted sharply to all the swiftly delivered instruction and as a reward, they got to have their “Q&A” session at the end of the proceedings. Dibowski worked the whole squad hard on grid work with a leaning towards freeing up the front end of the horse and allowing a good natural forward pace to move between obstacles.

The next day we again were subject of wet weather, showing clearly the passion you need for this sport. Peter was the first out into the driving rain to educate his young horse over the cross country schooling fences at Luhmühlen, under the guidance yet again by Dibowski. All took there turn out there in scene more akin to the North Atlantic rather than North Germany.

So all in all a very constructive first team training. For myself it was great to spend the time with the team. On and off their horses. It does actually make me wonder though? This is meant to be a kings sport? But the people here are from all walks of life. A farrier, a student, a property administrator and if I may be so bold, a house wife? It was clear to me that they do this sport because they love it. They have that passion, that drive. After all, who in their right mind would have gone out in those conditions, just to make small adjustments in their techniques? With the goal of the European Championships in late summer, taking place this year in Fontaineblau France, the team have their schedule well and truly mapped out. I wish them all the very best.