Equestrian: Up and over for rider who fought knockers

By DAVID LEGGAT

Sometimes sport is all about putting wrongs right.

Four years ago, Heelan Tompkins was an unhappy camper. Named the non-travelling reserve for the three-day eventing team to the Sydney Olympic Games, she felt slighted.

Her horse, the then 14-year-old Glengarrick, was regarded by those who thought they knew better as being too old, too unsound.

Tompkins made her feelings clear. Some feathers were ruffled.

Yesterday the sparky 26-year-old got the last laugh when she guided Glengarrick to an impressive eighth place in the Olympic individual competition.

It was the tough old gelding's final hurrah, and finishing best of the New Zealand quintet was the ideal way to go out.

"I am so proud of him, so proud that I was right," Tompkins said, while insisting this was not the time to be thumbing noses at the critics of four years ago.

The pair helped New Zealand up one place in the team showjumping into fifth. Then they were one of three Kiwi combinations in the subsequent 25-rider jumpoff to decide the individual eventing medals at the new Markopoulo equestrian complex.

They knocked one rail down to finish on 52 penalty points, 11.5 points behind gold medallist Bettina Hoy of Germany.

By chance it was the same fifth jump at which Blyth Tait and his Olympic champion of eight years ago, Ready Teddy, had dropped a rail on their way to finishing 18th a few minutes earlier in the horse's final competitive event.

Taranaki farmer Matthew Grayling and Revo made the final cut and finished 15th on 63.20 points.

But the plaudits belonged largely to the livewire New Plymouth rider Tompkins.

She was confident the pair could compete in elite company.

"I was hoping to go home with a gold medal, but in lots of ways I've sort of won.

"There's so many things I know I could have done better."

But Tompkins relished the environment. She loved the crowds and the buzz of the big stage.

"The company I'm in is amazing. They are like my heroes on my bedroom wall when I was 12.

"Now I'm out there giving them a run for their money."

When Mark Todd talks horse riders you tend to listen.

The double Olympic champion, now coach of the New Zealand team, doesn't scatter compliments for the sake of it.

So ... "She's a great competitor," he said. "And the horse is a little star.

"Hopefully Heelan can get another horse and get back to the top. She's a very gutsy competitor and very determined."

Todd said he had told Tompkins before the team showjumping that if she had a clear round, followed by another in the individual jumpoff "you'll be on the medal dais".

He was right. Third-placed American Kim Severson on Winsome Adante finished on 45.2 points. If Tompkins had done a double clear jumping display yesterday she would have been on 44 points.

And going home with a bronze medal round her neck.

"She had two unlucky rails down, and that's pretty much how our competition has gone this week," Todd said.

Tompkins admitted there had been times people had read her personality wrongly.

"I do things a bit differently. I'm a bit more chilled and sometimes people take that as I don't care enough.

"Hopefully I've proved a small point here."

Tompkins has three nine-year-olds, Steel River, Portrait and Boston, all of which show promise. They will contest their first three-star event at Puhinui this year.


For now it's back home after taking in some other Olympic events - "It'd be rude not to," she laughed.

She is quietly proud that both she and fellow Taranaki team-mate Grayling have proved it's not essential to be based longterm in Europe to prove themselves among the best in the sport.

And as for Glengarrick? Tompkins plans to let him enjoy his retirement, with perhaps the odd fun one-day event thrown in.

Eventing's odd couple - the maverick, forthright rider and the gutsy old horse - deserved their success yesterday.