THE ISLAND 22 EQUESTRIAN PARK

by Karen Robinson | Horse Sport November 2009

http://www.horse-canada.com/?p=2908

Oneof Canada’s true pioneers of three-day eventing, Robin Hahn is amultiple Olympian and Pan American Games team member. He was thehighest placed Canadian at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, finishingninth individually on Taffy. He has dedicated his life to the pursuitof the highest reaches of excellence, whether it is as a rider,teacher, trainer, volunteer or event organizer.   A Level III eventingcoach, he helped to create what has become Canada’s coachingcertification program.  Now 76, Robin continues to mentor event riders;he has also returned to the discipline of his youth, competing with TheCongressman in Grand Prix show jumping in 2009. He is currently writinga book titled Gymnastic Jumping.  Robin and his wife, Kelly Law, livewith three dogs and numerous horses at their farm,  onghouse, in Lumby,B.C.

Although Robin Hahn competed in three Olympic Games, the mostenduring and powerful Olympic memory for him was from the 1956Stockholm Olympics – where he was a groom, rather than a rider. “In the’50s we used to have big indoor shows in Saskatchewan, Manitoba andAlberta,” he said. Held in hockey rinks, the shows were closely modeledon the Royal Winter Fair, and drew not only top class competitors fromthe region, but also thousands of spectators.

In 1955, Robin won both the hunter and jumper championships on hismare Colette at back-to-back shows in Saskatoon and Regina, both ofwhich were judged by Denny Fuller. “We always had a big party on thelast evening of the show, and at the party in Regina, Denny asked me ifI would beinterested in trying out for the Olympic Team.”

Robin had never jumped a cross-country fence, but it was for theeventing team that he was invited to try out. “I was flabbergasted, buttold her I would certainly love to come and try out for the team.”

In the winter of 1956, Robin and Colette made their way to Ontarioto join the riders who would ultimately compose the bronze medalwinning Canadian eventing team in Stockholm. “Most of the fellows hadnot done much – a little bit of fox hunting and cross-country. That wasthe very beginning of eventing in Canada.”

Ironically, the sponsorship that seems so thin on the groundnowadays was plentiful back then. Larry McGuiness of McGuinnessDistillers was not only an Olympian himself; he supported the sportboth financially and through the ownership of several horses. WhenRobin arrived in the east, Larry gave him a job so that he couldsupport himself. “I would work at the distillery during the day, and goout and ride every evening,” said Robin. Larry was sufficientlyimpressed with Robin’s dedication and ability that after a month and ahalf, he gave him leave from his job at the distillery so that he couldfocus full-time on training to be on the team.

Colette, an ex-RCMP horse that Robin’s father had bought from theRCMP in 1950, was an inexperienced cross-country horse, but a greatjumper with an equal dose of courage. Robin recalled the first time hepointed Colette at an Irish Bank on the McGuinness farm. “She and I hadnever jumped one before, and had no idea how to do it. She tried tojump the whole thing and winded herself pretty badly hitting the top ofthe bank. I had to wait a bit while she recovered before jumping offthe bank, but she learned quickly. The next time, she touched down withher feet at the top.”  Robin believes that some of those earlytrial-and-error experiences influenced his interest in explaining howto do things correctly to his own students.

Shortly before departing for England to continue their springtraining and to get some competition miles, Colette was injured. Robinwould not be going to his first Olympics that year as a rider, but hewould be part of the team after all. “I was invited to go as anassistant to the coach, to groom and assist the team vet,” said Robin. The trip would result in the greatest inspiration of his riding career,and it began with momentous events even before the team arrived inEngland. “We flew with the horses in a two engine prop plane. It was myfirst flight ever.”

Robin’s experience in England and then Stockholm left him with apowerful sense of wonder at how he was included in everything as if hewere a team rider. “I lived with the horses and the riders lived in ahotel, but I was invited to all functions. I was presented to theQueen, and while living at Badminton I met the Duke and Duchess ofBeaufort, having breakfast with them on occasion.  I was overwhelmedwith the quality of people willing to be extremely nice to me, someonewho I thought of as just a farmer, and not important.”

Of his many fond memories from that spring and summer of 1956, Robincherishes one that he believes represents what the Olympics are about.“A young groom from Egypt was watching me groom a horse. We had nolanguage in common and couldn’t communicate by words, but he expressedsomehow that he would like to borrow some brushes. He didn’t have thekind of brushes we had.” Robin’s fellow grooms told him he was crazywhen he lent the Egyptian a set of grooming tools, saying that he wouldsurely never see them again. “He used the tools, then washed them andreturned them to me, then would come and get them from me the nextmorning, and return them clean at the end of each day.”

Even five decades later, Robin speaks with emotion when he remembersthe day everyone was heading home. The Egyptian groom brought thebrushes back for the final time.  Robin tried to give them to him, but“he wouldn’t take them. He cried, he bowed, and we hugged. It was quitean experience that we couldn’t speak to each other, but we becamefriends – and he appreciated something so simple. Robin learned thatsometimes a person’s name is lost to time, but the memories that formone’s Olympic experience are filled with special human moments; he alsodiscovered that people around the world, when brought together byhorses, have much in common.

Watching his teammates stand on the podium with bronze medals aroundtheir necks was a powerful inspiration for Robin to pursue his ownOlympic dreams at future Games. “It was such an emotional time to watchthem win the medal, and to hear the anthem of the gold medalist Britishteam, which was at that time the same anthem as ours. At that moment Iknew I wanted to ride in the Olympics for Canada. That was the pointthat made me desperately want horses and riding to be part of my lifeforever.”

Robin went on to compete in Mexico 1968, Munich 1972 and Montreal in1976, but “I really consider the one where I didn’t ride the mostoutstanding in starting my career. The Olympics get in your blood andyou can’t get them out – or want to get them out.”

A team that works well together becomes a kind of family, and thefriendships can last a lifetime. For Robin Hahn, the people are asimportant as the sport itself, and are inseparable from the Olympicexperience.