Equestrian: Jumping at opportunity

By DAVID LEGGATT

No New Zealand team at the Athens Olympics will have more of a United Nations flavour to it than the showjumping quartet.

The four riders - Bruce Goodin, Daniel Meech, Guy Thomas and Grant Cashmore - are drawn from four countries, none of them New Zealand. The experienced Goodin, preparing for his fourth trip to the Olympics, is based in Sweden; the best-ranked of the four, Meech, is in Germany, while Thomas lives in California and Cashmore has been in England about eight years.

They see a bit of each other at international shows, but Goodin reckons it was important that they had time together in Holland before heading to Greece to go through some planning and strategies for the event.

It might not seem a big factor in showjumping. To the uninitiated, four combinations go round the course, tot up the marks and, hey presto, there are the results.

But 34-year-old Goodin is a big believer in the team ethic. Hailing from Te Kauwhata, he's been based overseas since 1991.

He has seen the evidence of what harmonious team relationships and good planning can bring. The whisper is that this is potentially New Zealand's best jumping team in a long time, therefore it's worth making sure all the i's are dotted and t's crossed.

"I'm a big believer in the team aspect of it, although it is you and your horse out there," Goodin said.

"I've seen it happen before where good team situations can lift people and give them performances way above what they have done before."

Goodin, who will team up with 12-year-old gelding Braveheart in Athens, rode at the 1992 and 2000 Games and managed the team in 1996. A glance at the world rankings list is not encouraging. Meech, who was in the 80s until his horse, Diagonal, ran into injury problems about four months ago, is the best-placed at 160, but the list is misleading. No country can have more than five riders in Athens, so the numbers are essentially irrelevant.

Goodin has ridden few international shows this year, therefore his mark is low, 301, and he admitted he didn't know what it was. He hadn't checked for some time because he knew it wasn't pretty reading. For the record, Cashmore is No 252, Thomas 331 and the Californian-based reserve, Hamiltonian Duncan McFarlane, is 300.

"On a given day when everything works well, anything is possible," Goodin said.

"That's the beauty of the sport. It's also the downfall, because it's not like running the 100m where everyone knows who should win it. This is totally different, where people get lifted beyond what they were previously able to do. Riding is very much a psychological thing."

Hastings-born Meech rode at Atlanta in 1996 and, if New Zealand is to make a mark on the individual programme, he's most likely to make it. Thomas and Cashmore are new to the Olympics.

Goodin, whose father David was the first captain of an official New Zealand showjumping team in 1959, reckons there's no substitute for experience, and that's what made him a better all-round rider than in previous Olympic years.

He made a flying start to his career when he finished second in the highest company at the Du Maurier Grand Prix at Spruce Meadows, Calgary in 1991, which suggests he has always been a gifted performer. But coping with the ups and downs of his sport is easier now than then.

"I'm a better rider now I know how to deal with situations. I'm sure back then I did produce some top results but when things didn't go right they used to knock me and it was hard to find a way back. Now I don't let it affect me as it did."

The Olympic showjumping competition starts on August 21. After the teams competition, the top 25 riders have two more rounds to decide the individual medals.