Battle-scarred Todd charges ahead with his full focus on Olympics
He’s nursing a cracked rib, his best horse was hurt, and he’s been charged by an elephant.
YOU COULD say Mark Todd’s had an eventful English winter. The New Zealand equestrian legend cracked a rib, has nursed his best horse through injury, been charged at by an elephant in Botswana, and put the finishing touches on his second autobiography, which will be launched at Badminton in early May.
Todd may have just turned 56, but life is certainly not slowing down, and don’t expect it to any time soon.
After all, the Olympics are fast approaching and while the sixtime Olympian and two-time gold medallist is no stranger to the biggest stage of all, you can certainly sense the excitement in his voice when the topic comes up.
‘‘I’m nursing a cracked rib at the moment, but other than that I’m fine, and I’m really looking forward to the year.
‘‘It’s an Olympic Games everybody wants to do well at, and we’ve got a good team heading into it,’’ he says from his home in England.
‘‘We’ve had a few hiccups to get over but, hopefully, they’re behind us and we’ll have plain sailing ahead.’’
One of those hiccups was an injury last year to Todd’s star horse, NZB Land Vision, who he rates up there with the best he’s ever had, including his double gold medal ride Charisma. He’s fully recovered now. Another was an injured knee to the great horseman himself, sustained when he leapt into a bush to avoid a charging elephant while on a 12-day horseback safari in Botswana.
‘‘Three elephants came into the camp on a regular basis and the guy who ran the camp wanted to get a photo of me with one of the elephants.
‘‘I got a bit too near and he disliked it, so he came after me.
‘‘I had to dive into the bushes,’’ Todd explains. ‘‘But I had a lot of fun. It was my first time to Africa and to be able to do that sort of thing on horseback and get up close with a lot of the African animals you see there – elephants,
‘There are still five months to go and a lot can go wrong, but, hopefully, a lot will go right and we’ll get there fit and ready.’ MARK TODD ON THE OLYMPICS
buffalo, giraffe and lions – was an amazing experience.’’
TODD has now put his adventurous winter behind him as the British eventing season kicks into gear. The FEI Event Rider of the 20th Century has developed a plan to see him through to his seventh Olympics, where he’ll be a good chance to add to his four Olympic medals, in what would be a fairytale story.
‘‘Of the four horses I’ve got in mind for the Olympics, all have got slightly different programmes leading into London.
‘‘Hopefully, they’ll all be in peak fitness a few weeks before then. They’re all ticking nicely at this stage.’’
Land Vision, with whom he won his fourth Badminton crown last year, is the frontrunner and won’t be taken to Badminton with the Olympics in mind, although he will get a run in the three-star Barbary Castle event in late June to make sure he’s ‘‘in the right sort of form’’.
‘‘He’s obviously my best horse,’’ Todd says of the grey gelding, who he believes is as good on the crucial dressage phase as any in the world at the moment.
‘‘He was off with injury a little bit last season, but he’s working very nicely now. He won’t have a competition run for about another six weeks.
‘‘We’re aiming to have him fit and ready for London. He looks well and very bright, touch wood.
‘‘There are still five months to go and a lot can go wrong, but, hopefully, a lot will go right and we’ll get there fit and ready.’’
He will attempt to defend his Badminton title with NZB Grass Valley and Major Milestone, while NZB Campino and NZB Regent Lad have developed over the winter and will contest events across Europe.
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While it is not the big event of the year, defending his Badminton crown is important to Todd.
‘‘Realistically, both horses I’ve got there are not going to be among the leaders after the dressage.
‘‘Both are good jumpers, both are good cross-country horses, and both are capable of finishing on their dressage score.
‘‘So it will be dependent on how well I can get actually get them to perform in the dressage.’’
Todd will also launch a second autobiography at Badminton. It will recount the 14 years since his first, So Far So Good, in 1998 and look at his time as a racehorse trainer in New Zealand, and why he returned to equestrian in 2008.
Whether there will be material for a third at some stage in the future, who knows?
‘‘I’m taking it one event at a time,’’ says Todd, who is the 12thranked rider in the world.
‘‘A lot of it depends on how I’m feeling at the end of this year, whether sponsors want to continue, what horses I’ll have and so on.
‘‘At this stage, I’m looking past London.’’
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