Look Back at Lima (and Forward to Tokyo) with Jon Garner

Equestrian Canada Director of Sport, Jon Garner
Photo Credit: Cealy Tetley

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Overall, I think you’d have to say the Pan Am Games were a success. When it comes down to it, it’s about performance, and we had some really good performances: medal performances, personal bests, and top five performances.

From an overall organizational standpoint, the team that put the Games together did a fantastic job. Getting things done and getting information out was a real challenge that has been well documented. There were things that were unknown right up to the last minute, like some horse flight details. But I think what shows is that when you get a group of like-minded people together, they can pull off almost the impossible. The organizing committee did a fantastic job, the venue was super, and Lima is an interesting city – I enjoyed the food, didn’t enjoy the traffic, and got to know the airport intimately. (Editor’s Note: To make sure athletes and team personnel had a friendly face to greet them when they landed, Jon was at the airport to meet nearly every member of the Canadian Equestrian Team!)

But the lasting memories will be the overall team atmosphere. And I’m talking about the team as a whole, as opposed to the separate disciplines. Everybody was really engaged and there with the right spirit.

Look Back at Lima (and Forward to Tokyo) with Jon Garner

Jon and Jessica Phoenix celebrate her impressive results at her third consecutive Pan Am Games with Pavarotti.
Photo Credit: Cealy Tetley

That positive attitude started off right at the start of the year. Selection wasn’t done, but when athletes throw their hats in the ring early on and say, ‘I want a shot at the team,’ I think they know whether or not they have a more than realistic chance of being there. And it boils down to, ‘If I do what I normally do, I’ll be on the team.’ That’s a big thing for me, repeatable performance. Especially when you start to get to championships, it’s rare that people have a personal best at championships. It happens, and it happened in Lima for our dressage team, but that’s not the norm. So realistically, when you’re looking at your performance and likelihood of being able to finish in the top half, top five, or even podium, you have to consider – what do you normally do? What do your normal, everyday scores allow you to do?

I think certainly the dressage riders (Tina Irwin, Lindsay Kellock, Naima Moreira Laliberté and Jill Irving) knew going in, they had a pretty good chance of being on the team. And when you talk to them, they knew early on that if they kept moving forward, doing their work and keeping at it (Tokyo qualification was still the number one goal), they felt very confident that a gold medal would be would be within reach. And in sport, particularly a judged sport, anything can happen, but they came to Lima with the mindset that ‘We’ve come to win’. That’s a good mindset to have as an athlete. The top performers in sport go in with an expectation that they’re going to win. So that was pretty cool.

When you’re talking about the team, I think oftentimes we get focused solely on the athletes, as they’re the ones who are working in the limelight and out there performing. But at the end of the day, those results don’t happen without the work that goes in behind. The team vets on all three teams, Geoff Vernon, Jan Henriksen and Eduardo Felix, did an outstanding job. They are an integral part of that management team: They are very much looking at the horse, but they see the whole holistic view.

You’re not going to have anything without your grooms, and we had three great groups of grooms. They were fantastic; they worked their tails off from start to finish with great attitudes. And that is a piece that can very much set the foundation for the atmosphere around the stables and ultimately, around the team. If the grooms are in good spirits and together, it makes such a difference. They were so easy to work with that it made my life a lot easier, that’s for sure. And again, I think you saw it in the results and the horses, who were all in fantastic shape. And that then passes through to the riders – they know all they have to do is look after their ends and not worry about whether the pieces are in place at the barn.

The coaches also did an amazing job as part of that back-of-house-group. And, what we don’t talk about oftentimes enough is the fantastic owners. It was nice to get to spend some time with people I’d not met before, to chat with them and talk about their goals, their support of their riders and horses, and to see first-hand how engaged they are. There were some owners that couldn’t make it and the riders were doing everything they could to keep them informed because we had no television and couldn’t post video, but it was nice to spend some time with those that were down there.

Look Back at Lima (and Forward to Tokyo) with Jon Garner

Jon (right) and Canadian Show Jumping Team Chef d’Équipe, Mark Laskin (left)
Photo Credit: Cealy Tetley

We went to Lima with a clear goal of qualifying for Tokyo 2020 in all three disciplines and now, having qualified the Canadian Dressage and Show Jumping Teams, we can have a bit more of a focus towards the Olympics. Having just got back from Tokyo for the Test Event, I learned there that the organizing committee is working on the schedule, the venue is fantastic, and they’ve done a wonderful job. The biggest factor that we’ve been talking about for a while now is going to be the heat. A lot of things are going to be happening mostly at night, but also some very early in the morning. At least you don’t have the direct sun, but it’s still going to be very warm and very humid, so that’s going to be a key component. There is a ton of information out there, and we have to make sure that education is getting to those athletes aiming for a position on the team.

The process for sending individual eventing athletes to the Olympics will be by rankings and where we fit in as a nation, so whether we qualify one or two slots is still to be determined. There is an outside chance, depending on how the European Championships go and various other combinations and permutations, that we could qualify an eventing team. It’s pretty slim, but it’s not completely set. So those are discussions that have to happen with the team management as to what that looks like, and what the selection process might be for an individual or two.

Look Back at Lima (and Forward to Tokyo) with Jon Garner

Canadian Eventing Team athletes and personnel – L to R: Fleur Tipton, Jessica Phoenix, Colleen Loach, Andy Vergut, Dana Cooke, Karl Slezak, David O’Connor, Rob Stevenson, Jon Garner
Photo Credit: Cealy Tetley