A few years ago, I found this picture (above and bottom) on the wall of the Bukit Timah Saddle Club. It is nice to be remembered at the club. It shows me winning the individual title of the 1993 ASEAN Show Jumping Championships, riding an English horse called Andiamo. The SEA Games was held in Singapore that year, but equestrian sports were not included. The ASEAN Show Jumping Championships was the de facto South East Asian championship that year.
In my competitive show jumping days, I won twelve South East Asian championships, team and individual. However, this story is not about how I won this title with Andiamo, but about paying it forward.
In 1991, I was living in Singapore at the time, and one of the businesses I used to do was act as an agent for Lloyd’s Livestock Insurance. One day I had a call from someone who wanted to insure two horses. The horses belonged to the Desaru International Beach Resort, or some name like that. The sum assured they wanted was quite large and the horses were reputedly eventers that Capt. Mark Phillips had personally chosen. They were supposed to have been presents to His Majesty, the Sultan of Johor. My interest was piqued.
In those days, I also played polo for Royal Johor, so I checked with my friend, HRH Tunku Ibrahim, then Tengku Mahkota or Crown Prince, later to become HRH Sultan Ibrahim of Johor.
I found out that his father, Sultan Iskandar had rejected the present, as he did not want to be associated with that particular project. His Majesty was right, as the Desaru International Resort never got off the ground.
Not knowing what to do with the horses, the owners had abandoned the horses at a beach resort in Desaru. I was worried, as I had never heard of stables there. Before the horses could be insured, which was already doubtful, I would need to check them out. I drove to Desaru to have a look at them.
The horses were in shocking condition. They had been living only on what grass there was on the lawn of the hotel. Both were starving and emaciated. They were just skin and bones, in terrible condition. The big bay gelding, called Ardross, also had a skin problem and had no hair on his hind quarters. There was no question about insuring them in that state.
The hotel management, acting for the owners, insisted the horses were fine and that I take a ride on them. I felt so sorry for Ardross when I walked him onto the beach. My walk was only five minutes, but during the walk, I pointed him at a coconut tree that had fallen, and his ears pricked and I knew he was immediately ready to jump it. I loved that about him.
When I got back home, I called around and tried to get the Singapore clubs to adopt the horses. I bluffed Inge Thorsen, a Danish dressage trainer at the Singapore Polo Club, that the long-striding Ardross would make a good dressage horse, and she agreed to take him into the Singapore Polo Club’s riding school.
It took months to rehabilitate them. The other horse did not make it. Ardross slowly got back to health and as his condition improved, became a good workhorse for the riding school.
Singapore Polo Club changed his name to Andiamo, which means ‘Here we go’ in Italian. It was an appropriate name for a horse with a super attitude.
If Andiamo had one issue, it was his inability to sweat. Perhaps from the stress of the incarceration and starvation, Ardross was ‘dry’ from the day we got him. Anhidrosis is the inability to sweat to dissipate heat after exercise, is a condition that develops in horses stabled and trained under hot, humid conditions. It is commonly described as ‘dry coat’ or ‘non-sweating’ disease.
Andiamo was definitely a better jumper than he was a dressage horse. He was brave and strong, and a lot of school riders had trouble holding him. His long stride also made him a complicated show jumping ride.
In those days, I was doing all my show jumping at the Bukit Timah Saddle Club. Although I occasionally saw Andiamo at horse shows, ridden by Yvette Ingwersen or Frances Hatton-Brown, I never rode Andiamo again, till …
Fast forward to the 1993 Asean Show jumping Championship. It was still the era of borrowed horse events. Five countries came to Singapore for what as the 2nd Asean Show Jumping Championships. The countries were: Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Singapore.
The show, held at the Bukit Timah Saddle Club, was organised by the Equestrian Federation of Singapore, and was recognised by the FEI. Ted Dwyer, Australia’s World Cup Coordinator, and FEI Official Course Designer (today’s FEI Level 5) was the course designer.
As hosts, Singapore provided all the horses, which were pooled and grouped into threes. Each country would draw a group of three horses. All scores would count – no dropped scores. Imagine, back in 1993 we had enough horses that as hosts, we could find 18 horses to be pooled (15 horses plus 3 spares) to jump 1.20 m courses.
Cheski Brown came back from New Zealand to coach the Singapore team of James Ng, a very young Sumana Rajarethnam, and myself. As a national team, we always focused on team results at these competitions. Any individual results would be icing on the cake. We drew a group of three horses that included Andiamo. Being the most experienced, I got the ride on him. I knew he had a giant stride, but was very brave. If I could sort out the distances, we figured he could deliver a good score for us.
As it turned out, we didn’t challenge for the team win. Sumana, riding in his first international, did a great job, but the inexperienced Polo club mare, Bess, was having her first and only start at this level. James and Dibargo also had a few down. That put us out of the running. As a team, we ended up in bronze, which was a bit of a disappointment.
Last to go in our team, I said to myself, “Ah well, I’ll do my best, and hope for the best.” It is hard to ride if you put too much pressure on yourself to win. I remember enjoying my first round with Andiamo. I did my best to hold him together, and we got the clear round without too much trouble.
By the second round of the competition, Andiamo and I had become a bit of a team. He learned to wait till I saw a stride that fit him, then he would cheerfully set sail for it. We jumped a second clear round, over a full 1.20 m course, the standard then for borrowed horse competitions in South East Asia.
Philippines, with Mikee Cojuangco, who would go on to win the Asian Games show jumping in 2002, Rebecca Dosch and Toni Leviste, who would go on to jump in two Olympic Games, won the team competition, beating Indonesia.
For the individual title, I was up against Mikee, Rebecca and three others. I was third of the six riders to go in the jump off.
Both riders ahead of me went clear in the jump-off. I knew we would have to gallop and take some chances. I remember Cheski giving Andiamo a last sponge off to help his non-functional cooling system. Cheski might have been saying something to me, but I was in a world of my own as I entered the arena for the jump-off. It was show time!
Andiamo was a pretty strong horse with a really long stride. When he got going, we sure covered some ground. In jump-offs, as a personal rule, I would go out fast, and generally try to keep the same pace till the end. It was a strategy that won me many classes. Most riders in a jump-off get it wrong, waiting till halfway through the course before thinking they have a chance and only then turning on the gas.
For the first time on Andiamo, I set out at a nice open canter and Andiamo loved it. We were still clear mid-way through the seven-fence jump-off when I decided to take even more of a chance and really go for it.
Andiamo’s ear’s pricked, and away we went! We even jumped some potted plants to get a faster route. I remember the last two fences of the jump-off were a two-striding double followed by a sharp right turn to the big white Xanthus wall. Turning to the double, we really attacked the two-strider. Andiamo got the signal and really lengthened to the double. I didn’t have much time to think about how he was going to handle the two-striding double, as Andiamo lengthened even further and did it in one!
We were going so fast I only just made the turn to the big wall, but we cleared it too. No one was going to beat our time that day. That’s how I ended up on the wall of BTSC – with a horse that I had saved from starvation.
The Polo Club later leased Andiamo to an English club member, Frances Hatton-Brown, who absolutely loved the horse. By the end of 1994, I moved to Kuala Lumpur. I would see Andiamo and Frances in competition only when I was in Singapore. A few years later, Frances managed to purchase Andiamo from the club, and when her family returned to England, she took Andiamo with her.
Back in his homeland, Andiamo sweated freely again, something I am not surprised at, as they frequently do when they are moved back to a temperate climate.
Frances took him back into eventing. At a clinic with Mark Todd, she told him how she was going to start him in the baby classes. Toddy said, “Nonsense! Go straight out at Novice (1.10 m) level as he is so bold and just locks onto a fence so you’ll have no trouble”.
Andiamo became a fantastically brave and bold eventer, competing up to Intermediate, which is a very good standard in the United Kingdom. Frances says Andiamo would definitely have gone Advanced if he had had a better jockey, but no one loved him more than Frances!
In his later years Andiamo was a great, patient schoolmaster for a very good friend of Frances’ in his semi-retirement. Andiamo never had a day of lameness or illness and died peacefully at Frances’s home aged 27! Frances says she was proud and happy to give him the life he so enjoyed – grazing in paddocks, galloping across fields and having plenty of company.
