Two of my last three blogs were about the speciousness of FEI rankings lists and the injustices of the individuals’ qualifying procedure for Rio. So it was interesting that both topics come together in the matter currently dividing the jumping community in Ireland.
Irish social media has come out largely in favour of Bertram Allen, the world number 10, who – as far as the paying public sees it – has been cruelly dumped in favour of Greg Broderick, merely ranked 252, to gain the sole jumping spot allocated to Ireland at Rio.
You have to feel for both. Broderick’s team management and/or connections have apparently embarked on a PR offensive to bolster his no doubt dented self-esteem. You can hardly open an Irish news outlet without reading yet another piece about how honoured he is to go to Rio, his total focus on delivering, and how badly he feels for Allen whose efforts in topping the Olympic special points list actually won Ireland the place.
But there is an absence of similar sympathy for the other two riders in the frame, Denis Lynch and Cian O’Connor, the London bronze medallist. They compensate for jumping minorly fewer clear rounds than Broderick per 1.60m classes started by having vastly more experience of big occasions – something a lone rider with no supporting team-mates at a Games will surely need to draw on?
If Broderick has to drop out of Rio, or if an extra individual place crops up when the FEI verifies the Minimum Eligibility Requirements from Monday onwards (June 20), I wonder how team manager Robert Splaine will handle the likely social media fall-out if he overlooks Allen a second time in favour of Lynch or O’Connor?
Broderick’s ride, MHS Going Global, is the most glorious horse. I only saw him for the first time in real life at the Furusiyya Nations Cup final in Barcelona last Fall. Back then, the pairing had Rio stamped all over them. However, Ireland controversially didn’t qualify a team, and so there were always going to be tears over who got Ireland’s sole Rio slot.
It’s a well-worn rule that whoever earns a country’s individual qualifying place doesn’t necessarily get the gig. It stinks if that’s you, but clearly selectors need latitude to allow for loss of form or injury. It’s also a fact you can top a rankings list by winning points mostly in Table As, a type of class that bears little relation to sustained test you must jump over several days to get anywhere near the Olympic individual podium.
That is probably why Allen was not preferred. Bertram is mature way beyond his years and I am sure he knows that, even if his fans have not understood the subtleties of selection. For similar reasons, I would be sad but not wholly shocked if Scott Brash isn’t is the British line-up, due to be announced on July 5.
The choice of Broderick is still a little strange, though. He had time out over the winter for surgery on his groin. Going Global thus didn’t jump for five months after Barcelona, till the end of March, and then entirely in lower height classes. He has jumped just two five-star 1.60m classes this year – both at St Gallen in Switzerland in early June, where he delivered one of the four double clears in the Nations Cup, and then again to finish fourth on the Grand Prix. That is some five-star comeback, for sure, and Splaine knows his stuff. But you also can’t help thinking that once he had decided he couldn’t take Allen, Splaine might have considered which of the other three would cause the least angst to Allen’s fans. O’Connor and Lynch are, after all, “colourful” characters and seeing them favoured over Allen could well have provoked further ire from the critics who are not taking an objective look at respective form.
If Ireland had been sending a full team, it’s also more likely this next issue would not have been spotted or raised: following his selection, it was alleged that MHS Going Global isn’t eligible to represent Ireland. His owner, Lee Kruger of Caledonia Stables in Alberta, is clearly Canadian and often referred to as such in media reports. The horse’s FEI database entry has cheerfully said “Ireland” since 2012, but strict rules apply in an Olympic year: whatever nation the horse normally jumps for, and irrespective of where or with whom it lives, if his legal owner isn’t the same nationality as the rider by January 15, 2016, he can’t go.
So poor Greg is in the news again this weekend, as Horse Sport Ireland moved to dilute speculation, saying “these rumours are baseless.”
Certainly on the face of it, the leisure company Paul and Lee Kruger, whose alternate name is given as Caledonia Stables, is a Canadian-registered corporation, and Caledonia Stables is listed as the sole owner of Going Global.
Towards the end of any pre-Olympic year many riders with top horses that are foreign-owned re-register them in the joint ownership of the existing owner and with the rider and/or an entity owned by him. It’s a simple paper exercise, but unclear if that happened with Going Global.
The publisher of Horse Canada kindly called Lee on my behalf yesterday. She advised that Greg owns 10% of all her horses, though she also mentioned she was not fully apprised of the FEI rules regarding ownership.
A recent case before the FEI Tribunal underlined the tricky distinction between individual ownership and corporates. Chinese Taipei jumper Isheau Wong, based in the Netherlands, bought the horse Quinlan from Vincent Voorn in December with Rio in mind. She did so in the company name of Epona 309 BV, which is Dutch-registered, and this was so stated on the change of ownership form. Wong realised her error soon after January 15 and tried to correct it. The Dutch federation also weighed in on her behalf. Wong argued that she as a Chinese national was whole owner of Epona but the Tribunal wasn’t having any of it; she can ride T Rio, but not on Quinlan.
A number of media including myself asked the FEI about Going Global and received the same statement, which laboured the “responsibility of the individual National Federation to ensure the eligibility of all horse and rider combinations nominated to compete at the Olympic Games, including the ownership requirements” and that the FEI would not be checking anyone’s eligibility itself till after June 20. Going Global isn’t off the hook just yet.
I am not in favour of the FEI’s more flags, three-to-a-team proposals for future Olympic Games, but when the current system leaves strong equestrian nations reduced to such desperate measures, maybe the FEI has got a point…..
