Singapore equestrienne Caroline Chew looks forward to new Olympic campaign with new horse in new year
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Caroline Chew and her stallion Zatchmo are set to qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympics after finishing in the top two of the South-east Asia and Oceania group.
PHOTO: HIPPO FOTO MEDIA
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SINGAPORE – Three years after an unexpected elimination at the Tokyo Olympics with her gelding Tribiani, Caroline Chew will have another chance after she secured a Paris 2024 dressage individual quota for Singapore, pending official ratification by the International Federation for Equestrian Sports.
On Dec 29, the 31-year-old London-based lawyer finished 10th with stallion Zatchmo in the Mechelen, Belgium leg of the Grand Prix Freestyle to Music competition with a personal best score of 75.975, which translates to 239 Olympic ranking points.
The Olympic qualification ranking takes into account the best four scores in 2023. The two highest-ranked athletes from five groups – north-western Europe; south-western Europe; central and eastern Europe and central Asia; Africa and Middle East; and south and east Asia and Oceania – earn one individual quota each for their national Olympic committee.
Altogether, Chew rode in six qualifiers in Europe. Other than her Mechelen results, her top scores included strong performances in London (75.665 for 236 Olympic ranking points), Madrid (74.310 for 223 points) and Wroclaw, Poland (73.530 for 215 points).
Her total of 913 points puts her second in the south and east Asia and Oceania group behind New Zealand’s Melissa Galloway, who tallied 1,023 points with her gelding Windermere J’obei W.
Chew, who toggles between her work at Freshfields London and the stables in Gloucester, told The Straits Times: “The qualifying year started on Jan 1 and ran until Dec 31, which felt like a very long process.
“I’m ecstatic that it worked out and also relieved we’ve come to the end of it.”
Dressage consists of a number of tests in which the rider and horse are awarded marks for performing routines containing specified movements. Chew’s achievement with 14-year-old Zatchmo is all the more impressive considering they have just started competing together in 2023, as Tribiani is getting on in years.
She actually started the year with both horses – from the same Blue Hors stable in Denmark – before focusing solely on Zatchmo from September.
Remarkably, in the Olympic qualification rankings, Chew is also in third place with Tribiani on 883 points with scores from the first four months of the year.
She said: “I’ve had Tribiani going on nine years, so the plan was always to start the year strong with him. We took the big step of going to America to do the winter circuit – this was a huge undertaking for my team, supported by my work colleagues, and supercharged the start of our campaign.
“When we came back to Europe, I switched my focus to Zatchmo and started trying to develop that partnership, and that paid off towards the end of the year.
“Tribiani will soon be 20, so even though we have a really great partnership and we’re very comfortable with each other, there’s always the worry about injury and other considerations. That’s why we made the decision to get Zatchmo in 2022 and make sure we had two irons in the fire.
“They are both fundamentally very kind horses. Even though Zatchmo is a stallion, he is not aggressive and is easy to handle. He loves all kinds of food and is always hungry – usually for carrots.
“He’s a really talented horse and his performances with his previous rider factored into our decision to buy him.
“We are still learning new things about each other every day; it’s about finding a way to communicate together effectively, adapting what I’ve learnt from Tribiani and applying it to an exciting new partnership.”
Singapore’s Caroline Chew celebrates with her coach Matthew Frost as she and her stallion Zatchmo are set to qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympics.
PHOTO: HIPPO FOTO MEDIA
In 2021, Chew became the first Singaporean equestrienne to qualify for the Olympics.
However, the historic outing ended in heartbreak after Tribiani was found bleeding from the lips
She said: “That was a freak accident that could have happened to anyone. For me, taking on another Olympic campaign was influenced primarily by whether I still had the potential to improve and grow as a dressage rider.
“With Tokyo, I qualified last minute, less than a month before the Games. This time, we’ve hopefully qualified on the basis of a full campaign and I’m really proud our team managed to do that in a very competitive field.
“This was the journey I have been focused on and, as I know very well, nothing can be taken for granted with the Olympics, so hopefully it goes well.”
The quota spot means Singapore will have six athletes who have qualified for the July 26-Aug 11 Paris Games in four sports, with more expected to follow suit.
Jonathan Tan was the first to book his spot through the men’s 50m freestyle in the women’s 100m breaststroke.
Asia’s champion sprinter Shanti Pereira also met the qualifying mark for the women’s 200m.
Kitefoiler Maximilian Maeder and ILCA7 sailor Ryan Lo secured quota places in sailing.
