Olympic updates - Pintado progeny in bid for Olympics
MARK TODD RETURNS TO BADMINTON
New Zealand eventing hero Mark Todd now back in England to further his revived eventing career called in at The Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Horse Trials. Eight years after his last competitive ride in Europe, Mark is back, with his horse Gandalf, to try and complete qualification to enable him to compete at this year’s Olympic Games in Bejiing (Hong Kong).
The 51-year-old who won here on three occasions – 1980 (Southern Comfort), 1994 (Horton Point) and 1996 (Bertie Blunt) retired from the sport in 2000 after the Sydney Olympics and went back to New Zealand. He became a successful racehorse trainer although recently cut back from training to concentrate on breeding and producing.
“Although I had been thinking about getting a horse to have a bit of fun with coming back to even thinking about competing at Olympic level was totally out of the blue,” said the five-times Olympian. “It just happened when someone heard of a suitable horse which subsequently I liked and then passed the vet so I had to buy him.”
Gandalf, a 10-year-old grey is a three-quarter bred, part stock horse, part paint horse by Pintado Desperado, a 16.2 grey and white pinto descended from stock horse breeding. A grand prix jumper Desperado is now one of New Zealand’s top pinto sport horse sires. Gandalf is out of the Thoroughbred mare Princess of Power who has bred several event horses and was bought by Angela Lloyd as a yearling who then successfully produced him to three-star level.
This weekend ‘Toddy’ will be taking Gandalf to Osberton Horse trials where he will also compete Eddie Stibbe’s ride Dusky Moon. The intention is to take Gandalf to the three-star event in Saumur to try and qualify for Hong Kong. “I have no idea what the exact criteria are but to have a chance of selection we will have to do pretty well out there,” said Toddy who admits to being ‘as enthusiastic as ever’. “While the goal might be to get to the Olympics the challenge is to see if I can be competitive again. If it’s not fun I’m not going to do it.”
"He's been quite a successful horse already with Angela Lloyd, up to this level."
***Link to full dressage test: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlF68ku8OTo ****
Read on at: http://www.horsetalk.co.nz/news/2008/01/126.shtml
Todd's new horse has street cred - as a music video star
5:00AM Saturday January 26, 2008
By Diana Dobson
***Link to video - BAD LANGUAGE WARNING - please turn sound off*** http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ycpE-9bN88
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10488930&ref=emailfriend
"The horse which has lured him out of retirement was not even for sale but within weeks of his former co-owner, Angela Lloyd, receiving a phone call from Todd, he was on his way south.
"I was excited that Mark Todd wanted to look at my horse, but at the same time I hoped he wouldn't like him."
Gandalf - owned by Lloyd, her partner Tich Massey and her grandmother Vilma Shaw - is known as Little at home, but there's nothing diminutive about his personality.
"He's a cruiser - he'd lie in the paddock and chat away, and wait for me to go to him, or I'd have to tempt him with a carrot," says Ms Lloyd.
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