An Olympic Horseman Looks Back at Fun and Games
by Jim Wofford
First of two parts
Middleburg’s Jim Wofford won a team silver medal at the Mexico City Olympics aboard Kilkenny in 1968. Over his illustrious career, Jim won team silver at the 1972 Munich Olympics, individual silver at the 1980 Fontainebleau Alternate Olympics, individual bronze at the 1970 World Championships and team bronze at the 1978 World Championships. He’s also served as president of the American Horse Shows Association and vice president of the USET and been inducted into the U.S. Eventing Hall of Fame. Today, he travels the country as a highly sought after clinician and coach. This article first appeared in The Practical Horseman.
I was born in a different century. What with computers, cell phones and jet planes, I’m continually reminded of this. I’ve also been connected with horses all my life andlived through some changes in the sport. I thought I’d take a look back, and tell you about some things I’ve seen along the way.
I have an unusual vantage point, because I literally grew up with the U.S. Equestrian Team. I was born and raised on Rimrock Farm, a Kansas horse farm that backed up to Fort Riley, home of the U.S. Cavalry between 1920 and 1945.
I had thousands of acres of short-grass prairie to ride over, and I had some hair-raising experiences out there with my four-legged friend, Tiny Blair. I remember riding out onto the military reservation early in the morning, dressed in blue jeans, ragged T-shirt, high-topped tennis shoes and no helmet. I carried a fishing pole, with a rifle tied to one side of the saddle and a gunnysack full of PBJ sandwiches and Dr. Pepper tied to the other. Basically, I was a one-man (boy) crime wave on horseback.
My family had an unusual connection with the Olympics, so I’ve always remembered things based on the Olympic quadrennial.
My father, Col. John W. Wofford, rode on the 1932 Olympic show-jumping team in Los Angeles and was a reserve on the 1936 team in Berlin. The first Olympics I remember were in London in 1948. The U.S. Army was still in charge of all three Olympic equestrian disciplines, so the riders all were officers.
The horses for the most part were owned by the Army, and the grooms and farriers were all enlisted men. Master Sgt. Harry Cruzan was Major F.F. Wing’s groom then, and I remember him telling me that they had a heavy wooden trunk for each horse, an additional one for the vet, one for the farrier and one full of whiskey! I think whiskey played a larger part in those people’s lives than it does now, which is progress.
It was common in that era for young officers to ride in more than one discipline. Gen. Guy V. Henry, later Chief of Staff, U.S. Cavalry, rode in both dressage and show-jumping in the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm. In 1932, Gen. Harry D. Chamberlin won the individual silver medal in show-jumping and was on the gold-medal eventing team.
In 1948, Gen. Frank S. Henry won team gold and individual silver medals in eventing and a team silver in dressage, only the second American rider ever to medal in two Olympic disciplines. Ask me about the biggest change I’ve observed since then, that would be my answer: riders these days are specialists.
Years later, I commented to my mother that team selection was getting more and more competitive.
“You have no idea,” she responded.
During Prohibition in the 1920s, the Army Horse Show team would go up to the Royal Winter Fair in Toronto. The horses would ship up on special trains and the team would always take a certain horse who wasn’t much “count” when it came to jumping, but was hell to kick, and no customs officer in his right mind would get in the stall with him.
On the way to Toronto, they’d store their hay behind Widowmaker, and on the way back down they would build a wall of hay that concealed a year’s supply of whiskey for all concerned. “You just think teams are competitive these days,”my mother said. “Those young officers would have killed each other for a chance at a year’s supply of whiskey.”
I was only three during the 1948 London Olympics, so I remember very little. I do recall the damage done by Germany’s Blitz during World War II was still evident everywhere. Rationing was still in effect, so my mother brought an extra steamer trunk full of Hershey’s chocolate bars, silk stockings and other necessities.
She also brought a case of rice, unavailable since 1939. Fortunately, I found a way to jigger the lock on the trunk and break into the chocolate stash, so I stayed sugar-buzzed the entire trip.
While Gen. Humberto Mariles was winning the gold in show-jumping on Arete, I snuck into the enclosure at the base of the Olympic flame tower in Wembley Stadium to do what little boys do. A horrified English Bobbie, helmet and all, chased me over the fence, calling me a “horrid little boy.” He did not know how right he was.