Come 2020 and Armidale could be cheering on another Olympian with dressage rider Ilse Schwarz on the up-and-up.
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Schwarz is an Armidale girl through and through but like many elite Australian riders, has transferred to the Northern Hemisphere, now based in Florida training dressage horses and riders to make it to the top.
Despite her hectic schedule, Schwarz always finds time to make it back to where her love of all things horses began and, with the help of local rider Sue Mills, is often back teaching in the Tablelands.
“Armidale is my home town so I always love coming back here and I have got a very good, consistent group of people here,” she said.
Schwarz conducted a booked out clinic in early November at Tonia Wheeler’s property east of Armidale. Her style of teaching is aims to keep lesson plans conversational and individualised to make sure riders and their mounts are improving all the time.
“I am the sort of trainer that I have to get the basics down first, I can't just go and whirl everyone around and tell them that they are doing great when the horses are hollow and nothing is going correctly,” she said.
“Now having come here for a while you start to see the flow-on effect where the basics are there, especially at the championships last weekend so many people that I teach were actually getting reserves or champion of the group that they were in.
“I know I am not here a lot but I still feel kind of proud they did it.
“It is fairly exhausting because I try to put as much effort into lesson number 12 or, if I have been doing a series of clinics, lesson number 100 as I do for the first day.
“I want to try to create a situation where the rider can feel what they need to feel so they can go home and try to replicate it.”
In between travelling for clinics, Schwarz is preparing her own horses to compete at the top level with the two biggest events on the equestrian calendar in the next two years – the 2018 World Equestrian Games in North Carolina and the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
“Right now the selection procedures for the World Equestrian Games mean it's the first time I can actually get qualified being based in the USA, it wasn't possible before - I would have to travel to Europe which is very expensive - I can at least do one selection event and that's the first time they've done that so it is really appealing to do it.
“For the Olympics, I am not quite sure what the Federation will do, I have a horrible feeling that they will make the final selection in Australia because Tokyo is relatively close but if this works for WEG then maybe they will keep it like this because it gives everybody the same chance, you don't have to be travelling.
“Being based in the US, if I get qualified, I will have to go to Europe to get selected but I will deal with that if it happens, it will be a happy problem.
“First of all, I have to do the grands prix first and see that we have it all solid when we go down the centreline.
“Then we will worry about that from then moving forward.”
Although things are heating up for Schwarz in the next year, she will still find time to head back down under.
“I think there’s very little chance that I won’t come at least once before the Games,” she said.
“The Games are in September anyway so I could still come after.
“The pressure would be off, maybe I could come a few times after.
“Thank the people, Sue Mills who has been organising the clinics for many years and then Tonia Wheeler for using her facility.
“It makes it such an easy place to do clinics.”