“TINY, attainable, tick-able targets,” was perhaps one of the best lessons to take from Horse Sport Ireland’s Coaching and Breeding Conference at Cavan Equestrian on Tuesday, where Major Richard Waygood put Ireland’s world number 12 Judy Reynolds through her paces.

It is not often that one person can guide High Performance teams in two different Olympic disciplines to championship gold medals, but that is exactly what Richard Waygood (better known as Dickie) has done – 23 in total!

His career up to this point is littered with equestrian honours. He has held the highly respected role of rider master in the Household Cavalry and has an MBE for outstanding service.

“I joined the army a little by a mistake,” he told the audience at Tuesday’s informative practical seminar. “I arrived at the recruiting office and a sign said ‘Join the army and see the world’. I signed the dotted line, said I liked horses, next thing found myself in the Household Cavalry!

“I became hooked on eventing. My aspirations were to ride around Badminton and Burghley and become the rider master. I did do that and I was the rider master,” said Waywood who rode horses for Queen Elizabeth at the highest level of eventing.

2009 saw a change in direction when Waygood was appointed as the High Performance Dressage manager for Team GB, heading into an Olympic cycle on home ground in London 2012. “It was a huge gamble, eventing was my background. When I was offered the job, I was the first HP manager coming in from this background,” he explained.

“At the time, we had three of the best five horses in the world, and we happened to have them with the best combinations at the time. And we had the Carl Hester factor – he coached himself, gave his best horse to Charlotte [Dujardin] and coached Charlotte. My job was managing character and keeping confidence up and making them believe in themselves. It is all about confidence.”

His reign lasted six years and yielded team and individual gold at the 2012 Olympics, team silver and individual gold in 2016 at Rio de Janeiro, as well as team gold at the 2011 European championships.

After finishing up in his dressage role after Rio, Dickie was then appointed the British Eventing High Performance manager in January 2017 and the success he has brought to the team speaks for itself – team gold at the 2017 European championships, team gold at the 2018 World Equestrian Games and team silver at this year’s European championships, bringing his senior medal involvement tally to 23.

Speaking about eventing at the 2020 Tokyo Games, Waygood predicted the new Olympic format will make sure to throw up some surprises, but “you don’t want to go to a championship knowing the winner”, he said, adding: “Competition is really healthy. The Germans at the ones to beat, we are now rubbing shoulders with them. The French are always there and now so are Ireland.”