DOLLAR IS
BACK ON TRACK
thursday 6 may 2004 - 17:30
Following two rounds at the CSI** Fontainebleau
last week, Dollar du Mûrier*Hauts of the Seine and Eric Navet
discreetly strode the new ground of the François André
stadium in the first class, the Presse Océan prize.
«The horse has not yet come back into competition. All winter,
during which I was in the USA, the rider who was in charge of his
training worked on his physical condition; in other words, split
gallops, interval training, trotting, with the instruction that
he must remain very attentive so that the horse remained in front
of his leg. No one rides him like I do, even on the flat. When I
returned from Florida in mid-March I took over the technical phase
of his work. Dollar is muscular, conditioned, fit, with the body
of an athlete.”
But Dollar, a phenomenon, unbeatable at the World Championships,
is following in the footsteps of the great trotter Ourasi, as
a lazy king. "He hates work. So I alternate between the forest,
lungeing him, the walker, a little flat work, etc. He’s
moving a great deal although his real phases of work are short.
The objective is not to make him blasé because he’s
like that naturally. But when he enters the arena, he’s
like another horse. That mounts during the round and it’s
necessary for me to control it. What makes me say today that he
is not yet back into competition is that the round this morning
was divided into two phases: the first where I was obliged to
ask him, the second where he got hot.”
Nevertheless, the CSIO of La Baule enables him to return to condition
on very good ground, within the context of a high level competition,
even if the programme is inevitably not very suitable to the work.
I can’t jump in Friday’s classes (Parcours du Chasse
and Nations’ Cup), so it will be necessary to wait until
Saturday ".
The stallion is difficult to categorize. "This horse is
a true headache. I am asking myself questions all the time! "
The national trainer would also like to see him taking part in
the Nations’ Cup in Lucerne (3–6 June).
Eric, on the other hand, thinks this event is too soon and hopes
that “Doller will be fit for the French Championships and
Aachen in July. But Jean-Maurice Bonneau is not “letting
it drop” and continues to insist on having the pair in the
team for Lucerne.
One recalls at the time of the last important objective, the
World Equestrian Games in Jerez, “that he went very badly
in three competitions up to the Dinard Grand Prix. Dollar started
to get better at the CSI ***** of Valkenswaard, and was at the
top in the final line-up at Donaueschingen ".
But Eric Navet is very confident and assured that his horse will
be ready for Athens "He has nothing technically to learn,
he is in excellent physical shape, it necessarily simply to make
his mark in competition. I have respected the timing that the
sport imposes, but as he’s not an indoor horse I could,
therefore, not compete with him during the winter.”
Reassuring certainly, even if the situation is neither very comfortable
for the national trainer, nor for his colleagues of the French
team who must await goodwill of the lazy king!