Martin Fuchs is on a hot streak.
The Swiss show jumper is coming off a win in the grand prix at the CHIO Aachen, considered one of the top show jumping competitions in the world, with his horse Leone Jei.
And he’s heading into the Spruce Meadows Masters competition, running from Wednesday to Sunday in Calgary, Alberta, having won the top event there for the past two years.
Both competitions are part of the Rolex Grand Slam of Show Jumping, four shows modeled on the Grand Slam events in tennis and golf, which challenges the world’s top show jumpers to win three of the competitions in a row — a feat that has been achieved only once, by Scott Brash.
Heading into Spruce Meadows, Fuchs, who is 33, faces a major question: “Can he do a three-peat?” Linda Southern-Heathcott, the president and chief executive of Spruce Meadows and a former Olympian herself, said in a phone interview in July.
If he does succeed, he would be one win away from achieving the show jumping grand slam.
“When you see a young man like Martin Fuchs, he’s very dedicated, he’s very professional, he’s got all the skills, all the tools,” Southern-Heathcott said. “He has great potential and could be the next grand slam winner.”
Fuchs spoke about his win in Aachen and his hopes for the competition this weekend. The following interview, conducted by video in July, has been edited and condensed.
You recently won in Aachen. How do you prepare for these high-level competitions?
Aachen has been a huge goal of mine for many years, and I was once very close to winning it with my former top horse, Clooney 51, and then had a refusal on the last fence. And last year, with Leone Jei, I had a fault on the second-last fence in the jump-off.
That actually gave me a lot of confidence, knowing that Leone Jei performs there very well, that last year it was really my mistake in the jump-off. So I really tried to improve myself, to ride every round very focused and every fence very focused.
What’s going through your head when you ride into the competition arena?
It really depends on the venue, on the horse, on the day, on the hour. In Aachen, I felt very confident. I had a good feeling. I was very focused all day; I’d say the most focused I’ve ever been. I really always just try to jump one round after the other, to do one step at a time and then to always tell myself to improve the small things and to give Leone Jei the best chance to jump clear.
Tell me about your relationship with Leone Jei and how that plays into your riding.
Leone Jei is such an incredible horse, and he’s been in my stable for a bit more than six years, so we have a very strong relationship based on trust and belief in each other. And I really feel like the past two years we have grown more and more, and I have been able to support him better and to give him more confidence, and I really feel like he trusts me more than ever before.
And I imagine that partnership is important to riding a clean round.
Especially when you jump these type of courses in this surrounding, in this atmosphere, in front of 40,000 people, and you might be a bit nervous. It helps me a lot to know what horse I’m sitting on and to know that he’s one of the best ever in the history of show jumping. That gives me a lot of confidence to focus on my riding, to focus on myself and to know that when I do my job right, that he will most likely do a clear round.
In Aachen, you won in a jump-off. What’s that like?
We had to jump two rounds, and in each round the penalties counted, so we had to jump clean without the rail falling and without the time fault, and everyone who completed the two courses without rail and time faults went to a jump-off, which was decided again by faults and time. This is a very good type of class for Leone. He has a massive stride, a big canter, which allows me to go very fast on the straight lines. And at the same time, even when we have a really high speed throughout the course, he still jumps very careful, very clean, and that is definitely his biggest strength. He can really come from basically full speed canter and still jump a 1.6-meter [just over five-foot] vertical as if it were nothing.
And now you’re the Grand Slam contender heading into Spruce Meadows. Does that add extra pressure?
To be honest, no, because any time I compete at the Rolex Grand Slam, the goal is to do my best, and the pressure is always on. I want to improve myself from last year. Even though I won last year, I actually had a rail down in the jump-off, and the year before we also won with Leone Jei, so we won two times in a row at Spruce Meadows. My goal this year is to not have a rail and then to see what we can make in the jump-off.
What makes Spruce Meadows stand out?
It’s such a special venue with really unique kinds of obstacles, unique fences. You really need a powerful horse with a lot of courage. Even as a rider, you need to have more courage in Spruce Meadows than at other shows. Every year when I go there, I get more nervous than at any other show, just because it’s so intimidating for us as riders.
What makes the obstacles so intimidating?
The length of the poles — they’re much longer than at any other venue — and the fillers [items used to fill out a jump] are usually bigger, more extreme. They are bigger, thicker, stronger, so you have a totally different picture when you’re standing in front of a fence.
The post Martin Fuchs Hopes to Conquer Spruce Meadows Again appeared first on New York Times.
