Q & A with Frederic Cottier

Cynthia Hampton:  Today we're joined fortunately by one of our favorite course designers, Frederic Cottier. He is a level four course designer. He is an Olympic bronze medalist in the 1988 Seoul Olympics. 

We're very fortunate to have him as part of our team. He's helped us out on numerous occasions at Deeridge and at Old Salem. And we're pleased to hear his point of view from France.

Frederic Cottier: For starters this is very hard, but very hard for everybody everywhere in the world. So this year would definitely be a white year for the sport here. I don’t know how it’s working in the USA. I train in France and we can’t ride. Professionals can ride horses on their farm. We don’t want any accidents and don’t want to see riders go to the hospital.

Because my owners cannot come to ride their horses, because amateurs cannot ride their horses, I have a lot of work at home and a lot of horses to ride. I try to move my horses to different places to give them a little experience without of course competing.

Business will be difficult because there are no clients. People cannot travel all over the world. It’s not a big problem for the international horses, but for the new horses it’s difficult because in several months when competitions start the course designers have to be gentle. Because the horses will not jump this year.

I don’t know exactly when this problem will be finished. As I know in France the competitions will begin, I think in June or July, but regional shows. There are some places where the virus is not so active, so they will probably divide France in parts and we will start with small, regional shows. That’s the news I heard from the Federation and from the government. It’s not an easy thing.

But anyway, we have to work and horses have to work. The older horses, the international horses, of course what they need for competitions is to be ready in their minds. A horse, not like a human, of course it’s not possible to go after a long break into a five star or a 1m60. They wouldn’t start in two to three months in competition at 1m60 but they would start competing at 1m40-1m45.