There can’t be too many horse and rider combinations that have both recovered from a broken pelvis and gone on to Olympic selection, but Bundy Philpott and Tresca are one gritty duo. Bundy is the first to admit that 14-year-old Tresca (aka ‘Pete’) is no oil painting; his head is noble rather than beautiful, and although the broken pelvis he suffered as a youngster in the paddock clearly hasn’t hampered his performance, it has left him with a rather remarkable bump on his rump.
“He’s not sensational-looking, I can tell you that!” laughs Bundy. “But he suits me down to the ground, because he’s a real worker: the more you put in, the more you get out. He’s not unbelievably talented in one particular phase, but he just puts his best foot forward in all of them. He’s incredibly straight-forward and anyone could get him to jump a round of jumps. He stood out as a nice person from the start. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him put his ears back at another horse – he hasn’t got a bad bone in his body.”
Although Bundy’s own pelvis isn’t as outwardly wonky as Tresca’s, the injuries she suffered in a cross-country fall off another horse at Taupo six years ago were severe – she broke her pelvis, her right shoulder and quite a few bits in between. It was months before she could sit on a horse again, and a much longer time before she was pain-free. The accident left Bundy with some long-term effects, including nerve damage in her leg, and she works hard at the gym four days a week, to ensure her body is symmetrical.
However, the fall hasn’t dented her confidence or her passion for the sport. “The easiest way for me to explain it is that I ended up having that accident because I made a mistake; the horse didn’t let me down and it wasn’t anything to do with the fence. I just misjudged and got too deep – the front end got out of the way, but the back end clipped it and twisted and we both came down sideways. I could explain right from day one what happened; if I couldn’t, maybe that would have played on my mind. But I work hard to ensure I make as few mistakes as possible and the chances of such a serious injury happening again as a result of that kind of mistake are slim.
“I think for most people what wrecks their confidence is the pain. I sat down and thought okay, if this was to happen all over, am I prepared to live through this kind of pain again? And actually the answer was yes, it was something I could live with if that means I get to keep doing the sport and keep going with all these goals and ambitions.”
Early success
Bundy spent her childhood in Takapau, Hawke’s Bay, on a 3000-acre sheep and beef farm. It was, she says, an incredible environment to grow up in. Her parents divorced when she was young, and her father Bryan raised her as a single parent. “He’s a great dad, my best friend, we get on incredibly well. There is nothing in my life that he’s not fully involved with and he always said if I wanted to do horses, as long as I put the hard yards in, he’d support it, and he’s never backed down from that.”
Bundy says it’s Bryan’s fault, really, that she was bitten by the horse bug, as he took her for riding lessons and bought her first pony Cracker for her ninth birthday. “He worked on the principle that every farm kid should learn to ride. And it just went from there really.”
A tall child, Bundy went on to horses quite early, and ended up with the schoolmaster Glen Miller, formerly ridden by Matthew Grayling, when she was just 13. Although at that stage she had already been to Pony Club Eventing Champs she says that she was actually ‘pretty crap’.
“I regularly got it wrong in the show jumping – I had rails or stops or fell off. It was decided that I was really bad, and the best thing to do was buy me a show jumper, because that might make me better.”
As a result, she ended up with the phenomenal Little Milt, who came from family friends, the Loisels. The 15.3hh grey by Ramzes II and Bundy went on to jump around World Cups and made the senior New Zealand team. When she was just 16, Bundy became the youngest ever winner of the Lady Rider of the Year.
“He was a cracker of a horse and I didn’t believe there was anything he couldn’t do, because I was too dumb to know any better! I just threw the reins at him and he said thanks very much, and off he went.” Little Milt retired when he developed arthritis in his back fetlocks, and lived out his days with the Philpotts, finally passing away at the grand age of 32.
Bundy says anyone who wants to have a crack at eventing should make the effort to go show jumping as often as they can. “Dressage is a real feel and it’s something you probably never master, really. But show jumping is the best way of being a more accurate and brave eventer. It also teaches you that if you do have a rail, it’s not the end of the world.”
Sink or swim
Bundy’s first taste of international competition was with Hocus Pocus II, who she competed in Adelaide. She then produced Scot Free up to four-star level and was eying up a run at Badminton when he did a tendon. “He was a really cool horse, only 15.3hh and a wirey little thorougbred, but a brave and tough thing that just got on with the job,” she recalls.
And then along came Fig Jam, a gorgeous thoroughbred by Grosvenor, who came off the track via Angela and Phil Davies. Bundy show jumped him at World Cup level in New Zealand as well as eventing him. She believes if she had him now, Fig Jam would have been world class. “He was a generous horse and forgave me for all my mistakes. I tipped him upside down in more water jumps than I can count and he put up with it week in, week out. He was a really good jumper, brave and a good galloper, but I struggled with him in the dressage as I just didn’t have the knowledge to deal with him getting a little bit hot on the flat.”
When she was 19, Bundy headed off to the UK with Fig Jam and another younger horse, ‘like an idiot.’ “In those days there were 28p to the dollar, so I was broke from the minute I arrived. If I knew then, what I know now, I never would have got on that plane!” she says. “But it was just the thing you did: once you had jumped everything there was to jump here, it was time to man up and see if you could foot it with the best in the world, so off we went. I arrived at Pippa Funnell’s on a Sunday, and at 5am on Monday I was in the yard mucking out boxes.”
Bundy spent five years in the UK and for much of that time was on the bones of her bum financially. She admits parts of her overseas experience were torturous; at one point she completely ran out of money and slept in her car. She spent the last couple of years based with her good mates Tim and Jonelle Price, who at the time had similarly tenuous finances – she recalls returning home from lessons with Bettina Hoy in the Prices’ truck, and running out of diesel at the bottom of their very long driveway, because they were all to broke to buy fuel! But professionally and competitively, Bundy says it just doesn’t get any better than the UK. Highlights of her time there include jumping clear around Badminton on Fig Jam, although the horse had a massive over-reach and couldn’t trot up the next day. They also finished in the top 20 at Boekelo and Chatsworth.
“You’ve got to do the hard yards and there was a definite mindset that if you gave up, you were pathetic,” she recalls. “It was character-building in the extreme and a massive learning curve – I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
Sadly, Fig Jam was kicked in the head in while grazing with another horse in the field, fracturing his skull. Damage to the nerves turned him into a chronic head-shaker, which spelled the end of England for Bundy. Although it was expensive, she brought Fig Jam home with her to retire.
“He’d done a lot for me and he was a big maintenance job from that point forward, because he couldn’t be ridden and he also had problem feet. I don’t think you can palm that off on to someone else, and I couldn’t call it quits – that’s not me. I genuinely have quite a big affection for the horses I have and I go out of my way to make sure they have a nice life.”
A fresh start
After returning to New Zealand, Bundy took some time out from eventing. She paid for Fig Jam to live on a friend’s property and had a couple of years “being a normal person”. She worked in a bar and even did the first few papers of a law degree, before she was approached by the NZPH stud to produce a few horses.
Bundy took on five from the stud, with the intention of producing three to sell and keeping two for herself. Tresca (by Fuego Du Parlet) was one of those original five, arriving as a four-year-old. Bundy liked him from the start: “He’s always had a really nice nature. He’s not overly cuddly, but he’s pleasant all the time.”
Bundy on…
Her coaches
The most influential person of all in my riding career would be Bryce Newman. Everything from horse management to riding to attitude, there is nothing that Bryce hasn’t touched on over the years. We’re still great mates and we’ll walk the course together. More recently, Penny Stevenson has played a large part with the show jumping and Christine Weal in dressage. If you take them off the horse, they are still good people. We’re also really lucky on the squad to have Jock Paget as the main driving force – he always goes above and beyond. On a week-to-week basis, Jock is my main coach.
Dealing with nerves
Any event rider in the world who tells you that they don’t get nervous is lying. But it’s not really about being brave; it’s just having a bit of faith in what you’ve done and what you’re sitting on.
Her training philosophy
I’m more than happy to go out hacking and ride bareback, so there’s definitely still an element of Kiwi get out there and give it a go, but it’s now tempered with the fact that if you don’t tick all the boxes in all three phases, you’re just not successful. For all the money you spend, and the time and effort you put in, to then go out and say I just didn’t work hard enough is not an option, it actually turns you into a brat. So for me, the hard yards really do get put in, and whatever needs to be done is done. I spend significant time on the arena, although the horses do at least two days a week hacking.
Her hobbies
I’m really sporty. I play tennis and I ski. My dad used to water ski for New Zealand, so we also water ski a lot.
Her name
Bundy is a nickname – my real name is Tamarin. I was born a bit premature and I was in one of those fancy little incubator things. The nurses called me Bundle, because I used to curl up in a ball. It was shortened to Bundy and it stuck!
