The Hurdle Olympic Hopeful Virgil Must Clear

When he’s not working up a sweat at training, a 2024 Olympic Games qualifier – who helped guide Australia to a silver medal at Tokyo – spends hours each day in a paddock in Sydney’s deep southwest where he’s fed a scientific based diet of grain.

And that’s not all. Should this athlete be picked to strut his stuff at Paris he’ll travel from Sydney to France in the cargo hold of plane . . .

However, Virgil, a 17 hands high warmblood gelding owned by triple Olympic medallist Shane Rose, wouldn’t have it any other way. While he’s aged 17 – that’s 53 in human years – Rose was adamant Virgil wouldn’t let either him, or, indeed, Australia, down should they compete together at Paris’s regal equestrian venue, The Palace of Versailles.

Just as team selectors will agonise over which athletes to send to Paris, Rose must pick the right horse. While he and Virgil celebrated an impressive victory in Adelaide last April – and medalled at Tokyo – he admitted there’d be plenty to consider when he weighs up Virgil’s claim for an Olympic campaign against his younger rival, Easy Turn.

Easy Turn – or ‘Tina’ – is an 11-year-old German-born 16.2 hands high Bay Holsteiner Mare that came to Australia in 2017. And when he’s asked about each horses’ chance of competing in Paris, Rose admitted he’d have to take into consideration his old friend’s age . . .

And perhaps his after-hours behaviour!  Rose chuckled when he revealed Virgil was an escape artist that liked to visit his human mate at random hours of a night when he lets himself out of his stable at home and when they’re out on the eventing circuit.

“What makes Virgil so special is that he’s an amazing athlete,” said Rose, a New South Wales Institute of Sport (NSWIS) scholarship holder. “When you look across any discipline, the more dominant an athlete becomes, generally, the less injuries they have – [though, I know] not in all cases.

“Those athletes at the top of their sport generally can do it at three-quarter pace, and, sure, they can stretch themselves further, but they’re doing a lot within themselves . . .

“Virgil, at 17, is quite old for a horse at this level, and he’s certainly on the way down. But as far as athleticism, he’s certainly in great shape still. This year, in April, Virgil produced the best performance we’ve ever had together at Adelaide Five Star [which the pair won].

“Virgil is also a bit arrogant. He’s pretty confident in his own abilities, and I certainly draw to horses like that; that have that natural flair, athleticism, are a little bit obnoxious . . . probably similar attributes to myself, really! [laughs]”

Rose explained there must not only be trust between himself and whichever horse accompanies him to Paris, but there also needs to be a deep camaraderie between them – something the three-time Olympian said came from training.

“Horses love repetition,” said Rose. “Unlike a dog they don’t respond to voice aids, although, there’s a few we can use. But basically, if you tell a dog to ‘sit’ it will sit – you can’t tell a horse to sit.

“It needs to be black and white. Everything you do in the training needs to be clear boundaries: ‘this is acceptable, this is not acceptable’ so there are rewards for good behaviours. But, as soon as the horse steps out of what you’re asking it needs to know that’s not acceptable.

“You start from the bottom, walk, trot, trot, walk – simple aids – and they get repeated as you start to increase the technicality. You jump the small jump; you jump the bigger jump. As the [level of competition] becomes bigger . . . and you might have seen it on television for the Olympic Games . . .  we’re getting horses to jump massive fences, go up and down hills, in the water.

“So, as for training horses and educating them through the process: the speed we come to a fence, the way we prepare the distance from the take-off, will determine hopefully the shape the horse jumps in.

“So, if it’s a long flat jump, it will be low and flat – so it’s like the long jump where [a human] runs flat out. If it’s a high jump then you want to make it more elevated, so there’ll be more spring in the step, and shorter in the stride so you can get up the high jump.

“The horses don’t see the fences they jump over until they compete, so we have train them so they can understand and read the situation that’s in front of them in a split second. That’s through our training to begin with and then the way in which we present them.

“Everyone makes mistakes in any sport, anywhere, anytime. But the clearer the questions are for the horse, the more they understand. The more positive feedback they get, the more positive experiences, the more they trust you to do what you want them to do.”

And, while Rose will need to think carefully about which horse accompanies him to Paris, he said having Virgil as an option allowed him to rest a little easier at night.

“He’s qualified for Paris, he’s in great health, and there’s still a year to go,” said Rose of Virgil’s positives. “So, he’d be 18, nearly 19, by then. So, he’ll be very old – and that’s the reason why I have other horses I’m looking at.

“But Virgil is a really, really, nice horse to have in my back pocket. If something happens to them hopefully, he’s fit and sound and able to step up if needed.”

Rose explained equestrian horses such as Virgil had a much longer career than their thoroughbred counterparts that race at Royal Randwick and the other courses around the nation because the racers normally go to pasture when they turn six or seven.

“[In equestrian] we can’t have them compete internationally until they turn five,” he said. “And that’s the lowest level – there’s five levels in our sport – and you can only do one level a year. The minimum age for Two Star [events] is six; three Star is seven, and so forth.

“The youngest a horse can compete at the Olympic Games is the year in which they turn nine. The average age for a horse at the Olympics is 13, so 15 is considered ‘older’ and 17 is old. Older than that’s rare, but there are older horses that have competed. Kibah Tic Toc, who won a gold medal with [Australian] Mat Ryan in 1992, was 18, I think. And he won Individual and Team gold medals.

“It’s rare for horses to be as physically capable at that age. After 15 they start to get a bit creaky, a bit like us at 50 – I certainly feel creaky.”

And yet, as 50 year old, Rose, wrestles with Virgil’s older age, he said an interesting phenomenon is occurring among equestrian’s top riders.

“We as a sport seem to be getting older in terms of the athletes,” he said. “And I think the advantage you have as a younger [rider] is not knowing what could go wrong. It’s that ‘ignorance is bliss’ approach, I guess. The advantage for me is the more experienced I’ve become I’ve learnt more tricks.

“I don’t know if you’re into cricket, but if you look at someone like [England fast bowler] Jimmy Anderson who’s [probably aged] 110, but he still getting wickets because he has the skills. He’s maybe not as fast as he was as a kid, but I think its similar in our sport in that you can predict things a little more from your past experiences.

“I’m a hundred times a better rider than I was in the 1990s. In 2008, if I had the knowledge I have now, I’d probably win two gold medals and not the silver. Here’s the thing that’s difficult about our sport – it’s dangerous. So, the ability to keep fronting up, and the competitive drive, to keep that for a long period of time it is very hard.

“But I’m as keen to win that gold medal now as [when I went] to Atlanta in 1996. That’s why I keep fronting up every day.”

And it’s also, no doubt, to spend some time with dear old Virgil, who has one eye on that Paris-bound plane’s cargo hold.

Daniel Lane, NSWIS