The Hanoverian 08|2012 - the American Hanoverian Society!

6 The Hanoverian 08|2012
Sport
„I love my
Hanoverians!“
Age and experience are on his side: Eventing legend
Mark Todd will be competing for Olympic honors. He
counts on a Hanoverian at his seventh Olympic
Games: NZB Campino by Contendro is his number
one choice.
By Britta Züngel
Mark Todd from New Zealand has been one of
the most successful event riders for three
decades. “Luckily the sport of riding is one of the
very few athletic avenues where age and experience
are an advantage,” the 56-year old explains.
He has not lost any of his ambition or energy. His
bright blue lorry is his home from April to September.
You must attend eventing competitions, if you
want to meet him. The opportunity presents itself
in Luhmühlen where he participates in a four-star
competition. “I always liked Luhmühlen. First I
came in 1986 with Charisma and I won,” says
Mark Todd as he gets comfortable in his camping
chair. He set the highest expectations for himself
from the beginning of his career when he participated
in Badminton in 1980 as an unknown rider
NZB Campino and Mark Todd. Photo: Morgan
and won and has kept to them until now. Three
victories have followed his first one in Badminton
next to his five victories in Burghley. Winning gold
at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 1984 and
in Seoul in 1988 makes him immortal. He won on
unforgettable Charisma both times. The FEI awarded
him the title “Event Rider of the 20 th Century.”
He withdrew from competition after winning the
individual bronze medal in Sydney in 2000 to attends
to the breeding and training of racehorses in
New Zealand.
Eight years later he made an unexpected comeback
only a few months before the Olympic Games
in Hong Kong and started an event barn in England.
“It happened out of a party frame-of-mind,”
Mark Todd says today in retrospect. And what a
comeback it became: After a seventeenth place at
the Olympic Games he won Badminton in 2011 for
the forth time, 31 years after his first triumph - unbelievable!
This makes him the oldest winner in
the long history of the prestigious event. He who
calls himself an Adrenalin-junky cannot escape the
fascination of performance sport and of the Olympic
Games, “The Olympic Games still are very special
to me. No matter whats sport in, the games
mean for everybody something. I am as keen now
as I was at my very first Olympic participation 26
years ago” These will actually be his ninth Games
if you include the Moscow Games in 1980 which
were boycotted and the Athens Games in 2004
where he participated as a coach.
When Mark Todd returned to the sport as an active
competitor in 2008 eventing underwent a revolutionary
change. The structures and the dimensions
of the jumps do not have much in common with
the jumps and courses of the 80s and 90s. Much
has been done for the safety of horse and rider; the
competition format has changed. “The change of
the format of eventing certainly favours horses
with better movements today. In earlier times one
needed a brave horse; today you need a horse that
will have high scores from dressage onwards,”
says Mark Todd. After all one can only hope for
fellow competitors to make mistakes in crosscountry
and in stadium jumping as it is impossible
to improve one’s own score. In earlier times Thoroughbred
horses dominated this sport. German
riders and horses might have won the dressage
but then they were not fast and tough enough on
the cross-country course. This has changed over
the past years. “The sport is more open now. However
you cannot learn the unwavering will to win;
that must be part of your makeup!” Mark Todd is
also drawn to Germany to look for Thoroughbred-