Eventing
Cross Country Day- Saturday 14th September 2002
by Berni Saunders Report - Page 2
The Cross Country Course Designer - Mike Tucker

I first visited Jerez in 1996.  It was still the bidding stage for the World Equestrian Games and I had been asked to give some advice for the selection of the competition venue for eventing.  We visited several different sites but Garrapilos seemed the most suitable.  What made it the most suitable choice was the fact that the area included some woods, undulations and above all, it had a great Spanish flavour.

In 1998 I was appointed as the course designer and since then I have been focusing on the important details for the event.  It is a great honour to be invited as cross country course designer for a World Championship and the fact that it gave me the opportunity to work with a  completely new site made it even more of a challenge.  Work started in Garrapilos at the beginning of 2000.  Then, with the driving marathon course designer Arjan Brink, we started to develop the idea of creating combined facilities for the two disciplines.

It has been fun working with Arjan on different ideas, some of which have come to fruition (water complexes and the Bull Ring), while other haven't.

When you approach the task of designing a totally new course for a top level event, first you need to find the appropriate tracks for the different phases.  Funny enough, the actual fences are the last things to be thought of!   I have walked countless times around Garrapilos to find the right tracks for the various phases.  It needs to meet several key objectives. 

The cross-country course needs to be as TV-friendly as possible for the portrayal of the sport around the world.  At the same time it needs to give the spectators an enjoyable day of sport as well as a sense of a social occasion requiring the course to draw in the public to follow the competition and feel at ease.

Then, most important of all, the cross-country track needs to enable the horses and riders to find a good rhythm and balance while at the same time providing a challenge for the world title.  I often compare cross-country designing to creating a song: you need the right music fitting in with the right words.

Once I had designed the track (which today has not changed from the very original one) I started focusing on the fences and where to build them.   There are a lot of questions you have to ask yourself in creating a cross-country course and the eventual answers will always be in how successful the competition is.   In designing, one is always asking oneself those questions and trying to get the answers right.  For instance, are the tests suitable for a World Championship?   Have we provided a suitable challenge to test the relationship of horse and rider in courage, speed and stamina?  The aim is to reduce injury to horse and rider to an absolute minimum - have we achieved this, bearing in mind that this is a risk sport?   These are the sort of questions that you go over and over in your mind and discuss thoroughly with your technical delegate.

I would describe the fences as a mixture of old-fashioned and new tests, but with a strong Spanish flavour.  There are some spectacular fences which I hope will provide an exciting competition.  Once the course is inspected by the competitors and the team officials there are always differing views, but it is on the final result that one will be judged, in the end.  What can I say,  whatever the result, is that working in Jerez has been an incredibly rich experience.

The cross-country course is a result of strong team work and I feel very lucky to have found such a great group of people to work with.  Although British, through and through, I enjoy the people their way of life and it is certainly a place that I want to visit again.

Michael Tucker UK Cross-Country Course Designer

Fencing/signage - colourful crowd control along with the sponsor's message!

A Xcountry course such as this outstanding facility at Garrapilos needs the support of many generous sponsors.  The President of the FEI ( International Equestrian Federation) SAR La Infanta Doņa Pilar de Borbôn (sister of the King of Spain) told the Press that, this facility costs $15 Million Dollars (not too sure that she did not mean US).  With Olympic Eventing now under very serious threat, this course may be the last of such magnificent new facilities constructed.