Retired Kiwi legend Todd still feeling the Olympic urge

The legendary Mark Todd may have swapped eventing for the race track but he's still got one very special reason to keep a close eye on next year's Tokyo Olympics.

The 63-year-old Kiwi, who won two individual golds and three bronzes over the course of seven Olympics, announced his retirement in July after helping New Zealand win the Nations Cup at the Camphire International Horse Trials in Ireland.

He'll be in Tokyo in spirit, however, when, if all goes to plan, one dear old friend of his is negotiating the fences.

"I won't go to Tokyo unless I have a role in the New Zealand team, but I will be watching the competition because my horse McClaren will be there," Todd told Xinhua over the weekend at Equitana Auckland, an equestrian expo event in his homeland.

"It was a fantastic little horse," added Todd of McClaren, who is now with his former teammate Jonelle Price. "I am hoping that they have a good partnership and they can go to the Olympic Games. That will give me added interest in Tokyo. I will be very happy to watch what they will do. Maybe I am a little bit jealous."

Todd, voted Rider of the 20th Century by world governing body the FEI, had originally planned to compete in Tokyo before changing his mind and calling it quits.

"I just did not have the motivation to put that work in. Yes, I can go there and maybe finish top 10. But to win it, you have to put so much effort in. I just don't want to do that every day. It is very time-consuming as well. There are other things I want to do.

"I'd originally planned to go to Tokyo, but at the beginning of this year I had the opportunity to get back to racing again. When this opportunity came up, as soon as that happened, eventing did not have the same appeal."

Since retiring, Todd has been focused on training his 10 racehorses, arising at 6 am each morning to head to the stables.

"Hopefully, I get all the work finished by midday. And then there are always other things to do. Sometimes I still do some teaching for eventing. It seems I never have enough time. In the afternoon, all the horses come back again and I need to make sure they are OK."

Todd is back in New Zealand for the second biennial Equitana Auckland, where his illustrious career was celebrated with a look back on his achievements on Thursday evening.

"It always amazed me how well people received me here," he said. "I haven't spent time in New Zealand in the last 40 years. But I am still a New Zealander. We like our sports heroes."

He said the expo, which mainly focused on education, is a great way to promote equestrianism in his country.

"We don't have a huge history and industry around horses. In Europe they have a long history of breeding sports horses. We don't have that here. So I think the idea is great to create education to try to encourage more people to do it better."

Todd, who also won four Badminton titles and five Burghley crowns, has been always been a hero for Chinese eventer Alex Hua Tian, who became the youngest rider in history to compete at an Olympic Games when he was 18 in 2008.

An image of the two riders sitting together on an oak tree ahead of the Beijing Games garnered plenty of attention in the world's most populous nation at the time.

"That picture was taken at the Badminton horse show," Todd said. "Alex was based in England. I don't know him really well but I see him around a lot."

A fall in the cross-country competition meant Hua Tian's Olympic debut ended in disqualification. After narrowly missing out on the 2012 London Games, he finished eighth in Rio four years later.

"You cannot go and ride every time," Todd said. "It is like life. You have highs and lows. You need to cope with the time when things aren't going right. I have had a lot of that. Give yourself 24 hours, feel sorry for yourself and you just get back on it and keep going again."

Todd has experienced plenty of disappointments himself, and cites losing a horse to a broken leg at Badminton as one of his lowest points.

"That was one of the worst moments. You know that they are your friend, your partner. You are just helpless when something like that happens," he said.

And he also knows the pain of Olympic failure. In Rio, Todd had four fences down to cost New Zealand a medal.

"You feel bad for yourself," he said. "You let the whole country down, you let the owners down, you let the other teammates down. I was the last one to jump. For me, it was really a low point."

Overall, though, he can look back on his career with satisfaction.

"I don't have the desire to do anything more in eventing. I have had an amazing career. I have been very fortunate to win as much as I have won.

"My challenge is in the racing. I'd like to have a good horse to win good races in Europe."

Xinhua in Auckland