They're In For The Ride Of Their Lives -- Redmond's Trewin, Horse Face Tough Olympic Test

Another in a series previewing Washington's Olympians.

One of the youngest Olympians is in for the highlight of a lifetime in Barcelona this month.

It also will be three of the toughest days - three of the most precarious days - an 11-year-old could ever imagine.

So grueling is the three-day equestrian competition on horses such as Sandscript of Redmond.

"Knock on wood, I've been very fortunate in having my horses make it through, and not only that, but being able to retire a couple," said Todd Trewin, Sandscript's interpreter, Redmond roommate and partner in their Olympic effort. "It's always nice when these horses work as hard as they do to be able to give them their crowning glory and have them go out to pasture and eat grass."

Most of the work comes in the second-day endurance phase - after the first-day dressage, a routine of precise moves to show obedience and athleticism, and before the third-day stadium jumping, which demonstrates the horse's fitness at the end.

The endurance phase is 14 miles of steeplechase, hills, ditches, water hazards and unforgiving fences.

That's where danger enters the event. "Especially when they start to get tired," Trewin, 34, said. "That's when the rider has to make sure he's sharp."

So does the horse.

"They're fixed, solid obstacles," Trewin said. "They don't move. If you hit that top rail, it stays there; You're the one that rolls out."

Injuries, mostly for the horses, are part of the game. They commonly include bowed tendons and damaged ligaments.

The rigors of the sport were most recently demonstrated at the U.S. Olympic trials when attrition helped Sandscript and Trewin qualify for Barcelona. The pair had finished sixth, but two horses ahead of them failed post-trials physicals, giving Sandscript and Trewin the fourth and final spot on the team.

"It's a hard life for horse and rider," Trewin said. "We're learning more every time out how to keep these horses sound and healthy so we can keep them at their peak."

Sandscript, a New Zealand-born gelding, is at his peak. Consequently, so is Trewin, a 1976 Redmond High graduate who has been riding competitively for 15 years.

Since Trewin bought Sandscript last year for $50,000, the pair has won the Pan American Games selection trials (in November), has been the top U.S. finishers in a major competition in Kentucky in April and now has qualified for the Olympics.

Trewin had placed no higher than ninth in a national event on any previous mount.

"He is amazingly sure cross country," Trewin said. "I've looked at videotapes of him and he's able to do jumps on one leg that I didn't even think were possible to do."

Sandscript, a fiery bay thoroughbred raised in New Zealand for horse racing, seems especially suited in fitness and temperament for the athletic side of the sport.

"I know he loves the cross country," Trewin said. "His ears show it. The ears are the big tale of what's going on."

And what's going wrong.

"If we have a rough ride, bank off the top of a fence or something, I have seen him put down his ears and shake his head as though that wasn't right," Trewin said. "It's kind of like, `I didn't like the way that worked out,' and off he goes again to go after the next fence.

"There are some horses that won't do that."

Which is why those horses won't be in Barcelona.

Much of the Redmond team's success has come from their communication skills - critical in the fast-paced, hard-driving three-day event.

"It's trust. The whole game is trust between horse and rider," Trewin said. "He's not talking to you, so he's just telling you things by little bits of body language."

And big bits of just doing it.

When Sandscript is at his best during the cross-country competition, Trewin's just along for the ride.

"It's all horse going out and doing it sometimes," Trewin said. "You cannot do it without the horse."

Equestrian

A preview of the events in Barcelona:

-- Dates: July 27-28 - Three-day event, dressage; July 29 - Three-day event, speed and endurance; July 30 - Three-day event, jumping; Aug. 2-3 - Team dressage; Aug. 4 - Team jumping; Aug. 5 - Individual dressage; Aug. 7-8 - Individual jumping. -- Local qualifiers: Todd Trewin, three-day event. -- Who to watch: Three-day event medal contenders are Bruce Davidson and Michael Plumb and the U.S. team. Germany and Switzerland (dressage), France and Germany (show jumping), and New Zealand and Britain (three-day event). -- 1988 gold medalists: Three-day event, individual - Mark Todd (New Zealand); team - West Germany. Dressage, individual - Nicole Uphoff (West Germany). Team - West Germany. Jumping, individual - Pierre Durand (France). Team - West Germany. -- Last U.S. medal: 1988, silvers by Greg Best in individual jumping and in team jumping.