Throwback Thursday – How USA’s Eventing success was built on Jack Le Goff’s program
As the Kentucky Three-Day Event – one of only seven FEI Five-star events worldwide – gets underway we take a look back to the ‘70s when eventing in the USA made great strides under the leadership of Jack Le Goff.
It was 1978 when Jeanne Kane, (now Quagliano) a Wellington resident, was asked by Jack to be his assistant and stable manager in running the United States Equestrian Team’s eventing program based in South Hamilton, Massachusetts.
Jack, a graduate of the Military’s Saumur National Riding Academy (École Nationale d’Équitation) in France, and part of the revered instructors’ group Le Cadre Noir, was brought to the States in 1970 to be the national coach and he imported his own ideas with him. “Jack was noticing that the riders he was working with in the United States were not familiar with his European- style of conditioning, feeding and general stable management to keep the horses at a high performance level consistently,” said Jeanne. “So that became a huge mission of his in that you’ve got to know your horses and the end result lands on you.”
With this in mind, Jack insisted that the top national riders attending training sessions could bring their groom, but they had to take care of at least one of their horses themselves – a situation that he had become familiar with at Saumur, where you had to know how to do everything yourself and be aware of everything that was happening with your horse at the barn.
“He was hellbent on stable management and creating real horsemen, not just riders,” said Jeanne, who herself had been schooled in the craft of Eventing and the European stable management that goes with it at the Potomac Horse Center. “And he incorporated it at the heart of his coaching. He made sure that the communication was as much in the barn as it was on a horse.”
Jeanne later teamed up with Lisa Waltman, who had been head groom to Lucinda Prior-Palmer (now Green) to write The Event Grooms Handbook – care of horse and rider. The Book was published in 1983, revised in 1986 and is now out of print, but its contents are timeless. Aside from new technology – water treadmills as opposed to Whirlpool boots for example – unlike the sport itself, whose format has changed significantly, the fundamentals of horsemastership and stable management remain the same. “You can never forget the importance of the raw basics,” said Jeanne.
Jack’s program pioneered a new era for the US Eventing team. David O’Connor – who later became chef d’equipe of the US team after an illustrious career as an event rider – came up through Jack’s program. Jack nurtured Edmund Sloan ‘Tad’ Coffin from a teenager to become USA’s first individual gold medal winner in the sport at the 1976 Montreal Olympics when the US team also claimed team gold. By the time Jack stood down in 1984 the USA team had 18 international medals to their name.
“It was like a pyramid system,” Jeanne said. “Jack was the kingpin in the 70s and the program he built from the ground up with stable management, feeding, and conditioning. proved very successful.”