It's SILVER for SHANE ROSE! Australia’s Olympic Equestrian Team Wins SILVER in Tokyo

03 Aug 21

Andrew Hoy has become Australia's oldest Olympic medallist at the age of 62 after winning a silver medal as a member of the Australian Olympic Equestrian Eventing Team whilst Dynamic Shane Rose picked-up his second silver medal, to go with his Silver from Beijing and his Bronze from Rio.

Andrew Hoy the eight-time Olympian, along with teammates 3-time Olympian Shane Rose and teammate, Olympic debutant Kevin McNab, finished second in the team’s event behind Great Britain with France earning Bronze.

Kevin McNab, Shane Rose, Andrew Hoy - Australian Equestrian Team Silver Medallists Tokyo 2020

Australia had started the final day of the eventing program 17.90 points behind Great Britain and 0.90 ahead of France.

The final points tally for the medallists were:
Gold - Great Britain (86.30 points),
Silver - Australia (100.20 – 13.90 points differential)
Bronze - France (101.50).

Eventing is made up of 3 disciplines held over 3 days. Day 1 is Dressage, Day 2 is Cross Country and Day 3 is Show Jumping.

The Team Event accrues the scores of each of the 3 riders in each event on each day.

Points are penalty scores, so less is best!

After Day 1, the dressage round, Australia was down in 6th position, behind Great Britain, Medal Favourites Germany and New Zealand in third spot.

On Day 2 the Australian Eventing Team dominated the Sea Forest Cross Country Course and jumped their way up the leader board into outright 2nd place ahead of the Day 3 show jumping phase.

It was a thrilling day of cross country with the overall standings significantly shaken up. Medal favourites Germany and New Zealand, who were sitting in silver and bronze following the dressage phase, both had issues on course resulting in the teams dropping down the rankings, Germany to 6th and New Zealand to 4th spot.

Australia sent out their Team Pathfinder, Shane Rose on Virgil, and the Dynamic Duo set the standard very high early on, returning home with a clear round, under time, adding no penalties to his dressage score of 31.70 and moving Shane into 9th place individually.

SHANE & VIRGIL Fly High

Shane said afterwards, “It was amazing, he (Virgil) didn't put a foot wrong. He was amazing, and it was great to have a fit healthy horse at a Championships, he is in great form. The round went pretty much to plan. I was up on my minutes, and from four minutes we just cantered home.”

Kevin McNab riding Don Quidam was the second Australian combination on course. The pair made the sizable track look effortless incurring no jumping penalties and only 2.80 time penalties. McNab, who is making his Olympic debut in Tokyo, said that incurring no jumping faults was his priority.

“I was a little slow, but my horse felt great the whole way. We are moving in the right direction, obviously it would have been great to go under time, but it is clear first and then time second, and I wanted to make sure I was clear.”

McNab finished the Day on a score of 34.90 and ranked 15th individually.

Olympic legend Andrew Hoy, rode Vassilsy de Lassos to a clear round, coming through the finish flags an astounding 10 seconds under the optimum time.

Kevin McNab, Andrew Hoy, Shane Rose

Day 3 was the show jumping.

Kevin McNab produced a faultless round on Don Quidam in 77.76 seconds – well inside the time limit.

He was followed by Shane Rose, who picked up a four-point penalty when Virgil clipped a top rail at a jump. This matched the French Team who earlier had also clipped a rail incurring a 4-point penalty.

That left Andrew Hoy with no margin for error as the anchor of the Australian team. Typically, Andrew came through under pressure on board his horse Vassily De Lassos.

That’s Silver !

WHATEVER IT TAKES: SHANE ROSE

SHANE ROSE

Shane Rose explains what he has overcome for him to compete at the Tokyo Olympics. Shane has broken more bones in his body than perhaps it is fair for one man to break.

“I’ve broken most things: both my arms, both my legs, hands, both rib cages, my shoulder,” Shane reels off.

“I got golden staph [Staphylococcus aureus] after I broke my ribs and punctured a lung and tore my liver apart; that was pretty awful,” he adds.

“I also have eight plates in my face – I got kicked after I got myself into a bad position with a horse, and pretty much smashed everything from the bottom up.”

Shane laughs as he said, “I used to be beautiful looking, but now not so much! But the good thing about bones is that they heal – generally.”

It’s just as well that they do, and that Shane is an incredibly tough and resilient sportsman, otherwise he certainly would not have made it to Tokyo.

But he reveals that the vast majority of his injuries have not been incurred while competing, and he is thankful for that.

“I have only done two [breaks] competing – the mental scars are much harder when you do that. Whereas if you get kicked in the face, you’re being silly really, you’re in a position you probably shouldn’t have been, and so it’s easier to come back from that sort of thing.

“It’s just part of being around horses – they’re dangerous animals so you’ve got to look after yourself. But once [injuries] are done, they’re done. You move on and can’t really think about it too much, just try to learn from your ways,” continues Shane, adding that he is “quite particular” about how he walks behind a horse nowadays, after his facial injury.

Shane Rose has now ridden at three Olympics, including Tokyo – winning two silver’s and bronze in Beijing and Rio respectively – as well as four World Equestrian Games, but his main “day job” is actually breaking and training racehorses at his property Bimbadeen Park at Werombi in New South Wales.

“We have a pre-training, breaking and spelling farm and we break in a bunch of horses for some really nice people,” Shane explains.

Adam Watt / Dynamic Syndications with Shane Rose

Dynamic Syndications are the main client behind Shane’s business.

“We have developed another property for spelling that is very close to being finished.

“It’s a busy thing, but I like being busy. We work 50 or 60 in a morning before we start doing the eventers later on in the afternoon. But we’re really lucky that we have some awesome staff who make things happen at home.”

On Day 1, of the Tokyo Olympic eventing, Shane produced a dressage score of 31.7 on his 16-year-old gelding named Virgil.

On Day 2, Shane completed the testing cross-country course without penalty and was just one of 7 riders to do so under the allotted time of 7 minutes and 45 seconds.

On Day 3, Shane undertook the show jumping, picking up one 4-point rail penalty to finish with an overall score of 35.7

SHANE ROSE – Bio

Shane Rose is now a triple Australian Olympic medallist in the equestrian sport of 3-day eventing.

From his first mount, an 8hh Shetland pony called ‘Mickey Mouse’, Shane has reached the pinnacle of his sport.

The Dynamic Shane Rose is currently ranked 18th in the FEI World Rankings and has 58 FEI wins at the highest level to his name.

In 1994 Shane was 21, and that’s when he realised his first goal, representing Australia in the Young Rider Trans-Tasman competition with his horse Mr Joe Cool. They won two events, the NZ Young Rider One-Day & Three-Day Championships, and the team won the Young Rider Trans-Taman trophy for the first time.

In 1996 Shane was selected on the squad to the Atlanta Olympic Games and went to the States with Mr Joe Cool.

In 1998, Shane went to Rome with It’s A Knockout and rode at the World Equestrian Games (WEG) as a member of the Australian team.

After setting up his base, ‘Bimbadeen Park’ in Werombi, NSW, with his partner Niki Chapman, in 2003 the hard work and dedication were becoming evident in his results.

In 2006, on their Burghley CCI debut, Shane and his horse All Luck, finished 3rd.

In 2008, Shane and All Luck were selected for the Beijing Olympic Games. “Lucky” came out all guns blazing for the cross country and clocked up the best cross-country round of the day. Shane and Lucky were members of the Team that won the Silver Medal at the Olympic Games.

Since then, Shane has been selected to ride in another two Australian teams, firstly at the 2012 London Olympics with Taurus, and then again at the 2014 World Equestrian Games in Normandy, France, where after the unfortunate withdrawal of the wonderful CP Qualified, Shane and Taurus finished as part of the 5th placed Australian team. The team successfully qualified Australia a place at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games; as part of this team, riding Cp Qualified, they took home the Team Bronze medal.

In 2016 Shane said: “I love my horses but I look at them as a way of getting me to the Olympics. They're not really for sale, but hypothetically, if I sold my two horses for one million dollars each, I could be sitting at home with two million dollars, but I wouldn't be at the Olympics, and I would rather have my horses than the money. You can't buy the opportunity to go to an Olympic Games."

In 2021, Shane has added more silverware with his Silver Medal at the Tokyo games aboard Virgil.

Shane is a five-time winner of the Anna Savage Medal, which is presented to the best and fairest Australian eventing rider.

SUMMARY:

Shane Rose is an integral part of the Dynamic Syndications Team.

Adam Watt & Shane Rose

Shane breaks-in and educates all our horses. We also have Shane do our pre-training before our horses return to their trainers and we send all our short-term spellers to Shane’s property to be cared for.

We use Shane and his team because they are the best.

Shane Rose educates all Dynamic Syndications horses

Our Owners always come first, and we ensure that our Owner’s horses are treated in the same manner.

Having Australia’s outstanding horseman breaking-in and riding our Owners horses is paramount to our outstanding racetrack success.

Congratulations to SHANE ROSE, ANDREW HOY and KEVIN McNAB on Winning SILVER at TOKYO.