Published Friday, August 08, 2008

Newnan's Mike Winter on Canadian equestrian team

By Sarah Fay Campbell

The Newnan Times-Herald

Newnan resident Mike Winter is in Hong Kong preparing for the 2008 Olympics.

Winter, a Toronto native, is a member of the Canadian Three-Day-Eventing Team in the equestrian competition.

Three-Day-Eventing will begin on Saturday. There will be two days of dressage, followed by cross country on Monday and show jumping on Tuesday.

Dressage competition will not be broadcast on television, but can be viewed online at www.nbcolympics.com.

Highlights of the cross country competition will be broadcast on the Oxygen Network, along with gymnastics, from 6 to 8 p.m. on Monday. Stadium jumping highlights will be broadcast Tuesday on Oxygen from 6 to 8 p.m. and will be live online from 7:15 a.m. to 12:55 p.m.

The sport consists of the separate events of dressage, cross country jumping coupled with an endurance portion, and stadium show jumping. Team members then compete in a second round of show jumping to determine individual scores, so any competitor has the option to win a team medal, an individual medal, or both. In the team competition, only the top three scores will count.

Eventing is a sport of horse and rider. They compete as a team, and if something happens to one, the other can't compete.

Winter is lucky this year, however, because he is not only a team member along with his mount Kingpin, a 12-year-old Irish Sport Horse, but also an alternate with Wonderful Will, an 11-year-old American Thoroughbred.

Eventing is very strenuous on a horse, and frequent medical inspections make sure that the horse remains fit to compete. Failing a medical inspection leads to disqualification.

Winter and his wife, Emma, also a world class rider, operate Swamp Fox Farm in Coweta, where they train horses and riders in the sport.

Winter and his four team members began their Olympic journey in Ocala, Fla., at a training camp and pre-export quarantine. The team departed for Hong Kong on July 25.