Lucindamakes royal visit
Central Districts riders get a lesson they’ll not forget from one of the world’s best eventers.
Seldom, if ever, has a small cranny of rural Tangimoana been graced by a member of three-day eventing royalty like Lucinda Green.
The former world champion and three-times Olympic Games rider was there yesterday in a paddock which doubles as a Mckelvie family polo ground, very much hands-on delivering a half dozen young Central Districts riders the lesson of their lives.
This was the woman who won a record six Badminton Horse Trials on six different horses between 1973 and 1984, one more even than Mark Todd, when she was better known by her maiden name of Lucinda Prior-palmer.
Green was revelling in her work in the sun, a long way from the English winter back home in Hampshire.
Green started coaching 20 years ago and is on her third such trip to New Zealand.
While she travels the world teaching eventing, specifically the crosscountry discipline, usually her clinics are in the main centres, meaning Central Districts riders miss out. She began riding at the age of 4. Her lineage traces back to her grandfather, a viceroy of India.
In her career, she competed against New Zealanders like Tinks Pottinger, the Wairarapa sheep and beef farmer who was at Pukemarama farm yesterday.
Pottinger, a performance leader for Equestrian NZ, had a hand in bringing Green to Pukemarama.
‘‘We’re very lucky; she has a wonderful personality,’’ Pottinger said.
‘‘She was a wonderful rider and wouldn’t have an enemy in the sport.’’
Pottinger’s daughter Amanda, who played hockey for Central this year and attends Massey University, was there riding yesterday.
Green looked trim and fit for a 58-yearold and exuded the confidence of one who was long at the peak of her game.
But she doesn’t teach at the elite level.
Only tweaking is needed there.
She can make a greater impact with younger riders.
Green likes the chances of the New Zealand eventers at the London Olympics this year.
‘‘They are very strong, but it is who is going to be lucky on the day,’’ she said.
‘‘Your great attitude carries you so far.
‘‘You just get on with the job,’’ she said.
She warned not to write off teams like Great Britain, Germany, Australia, the French and the Americans.
Green isn’t sold on the Olympic
England’s Lucinda Green at work teaching young Central Districts eventing riders at Tangimoana yesterday. course at Greenwich, which has yet to be built, calling it five-star terrain with a two-star course on it.
She says the sport is more competitive than when she retired in 1987, but tougher, maybe not.
‘‘You didn’t retire in our day because sometimes your score counted.
‘‘You still have to be in the top four after the dressage. It was the top 10 when I started. You have got to be more talented in dressage now.’’
The advanced level as a rider is beyond her now and teaching the other two disciplines of dressage and showjumping are not her forte.
‘‘I compete one horse, which is a great joy.’’
Green has also been a newspaper columnist, TV commentator and presenter and is an author of six books.