Townend challenge is growing stronger

AFTER back-to-back appearances at the World Equestrian Games and European Championships, Huddersfield's Oliver Townend is very much back in the Team Great Britain fold.
Oliver TownendOliver Townend
Oliver Townend

As one might expect as the British Eventing No 1 and world No 13.

The Yorkshireman now prays that the biggest international of all – the Olympic Games – is next.

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Yet there is no chance of Townend resting on his laurels as the 33-year-old targets another year of major progression in the eventing sphere.

Townend enjoyed a fantastic 2015 with the rider finishing comfortably clear at the top of British Eventing’s rider’s rankings.

The clock is counting down to the start of the 2016 season with Townend aiming recent recruit Fenyas Elegance and one other at May’s CCI four-star Badminton Horse Trials.

He is also contemplating the prospect of tackling another CCI four-star just one week before Badminton at Kentucky Rolex where the rider was hospitalised after suffering a bruising fall in 2010.

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Six years on, the rider has bounced back better than ever – threatening to eventually reclaim his world no 1 crown with September’s CCI four-star at Burghley also on his agenda.

There is, though, unquestionably one event that matters most, the Olympics.

Townend has competed in the last two international events for Team GB and admits that is a sweet feeling six months shy of Rio.

“It’s great, no less than a fantastic feeling and I’m not complacent about it in any way shape or form,” Townend told The Yorkshire Post.

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“I’m just hoping that I’ll be there for a lot of years to come.

“If the horse power is getting better and better then, hopefully, I will be getting closer and closer with the Olympics in mind.”

Armada has long been Townend’s stable No 1 and flag-bearer, but the rider admitted: “I’d say the whole thing is swapping and changing a bit now.

“Obviously, Fenyas Elegance is there and Cooley SRS has won his first CCI three-star, albeit only in Ireland but, at the same time, they still have to jump the fences and they still have to survive.

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“Cooley Master Class is a very, very good horse; he’s had an extremely quiet season and he’s 100 per cent sound and ready to go.

“There’s also a new ride in MHS King Joules – obviously there are horses that I have had all the way through but the new ones are King Joules and Cillnabradden Evo that won at Osberton that feel like very good horses.

“Black Tie II is very good as well. We had an idea to go to Pau actually but I had been away quite a lot and we decided that we’d like to take him somewhere in the Spring for something more rewarding.

“At the end of the day, he’s got himself to a World Championships and now we’ll concentrate on the Spring so he can, hopefully, be one of a number of horses that can get himself in contention for going somewhere really good.

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“We have got strength in depth as well as always being on the lookout for the next superstar and always trying to get as things as good as they could be.

“At the same time, things are definitely still progressing and improving and you’d hope that that’s fairly clear from the ranking points situation because I have got a real lot of strength in depth now all the way through.”

The weekend of March 5-6 will provide Townend’s latest opportunity to illustrate that strength in depth with the opening weekend of the season featuring trials at Isleham, Moreton, Aston-le-Walls and, closer to home, at Askham Bryan College.

Around seven weeks later, Townend then has an international assignment on his mind in Kentucky with the rider insisting in no way is he seeking to settle a score from his 2010 fall.

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The event is one of six annual CCI four-stars but Townend also sees the year’s CCI three-stars as particularly important, including Bramham.

Townend reasoned: “My four star lot is still relatively quiet but there’s a huge amount at three star level and qualified for four-star if that makes sense.

“I’d like to keep them at three star and I’d like to concentrate on getting good results rather than pushing them too quickly.

“A lot of them are still only eight coming nine and you don’t want to go to the four stars too early.

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“But, put it this way, if you said that all the three stars had been cancelled then I’d be in a very strong position to have horses at every four star event.

“We’ll keep them saved and really on top of the job.”

Asked to nominate one horse for Rio, Townend pondered: “You’d have to say after last season that Fenyas Elegance would be as near as anything and it was just a mistake that happened that cost me an individual silver medal (at Blair).

“It was a mistake, basically it’s just a new ride and we don’t know each other very well and we had a bit of a communication issue.

“But having said all that, her performance was still very, very good.

“Touch wood, she’ll go to Badminton.”