IN September 2018, the equestrian world congregated in North Carolina at Tryon Equestrian Centre to watch the best of the best battle it out for the title of world champion.
In the three leading disciplines of eventing, dressage and show jumping, it was three ladies who stood top of the podium. Equestrian sports are one of the only Olympic disciplines where both men and women compete together and neither receive any allowances for their gender.
In eventing, Britain’s Ros Canter wowed the world with a phenomenal performance aboard Allstar B; Germany’s dressage queen Isabell Werth couldn’t stop the tears when she claimed gold with Bella Rose after a long road back from injury; and the then relatively unknown German superstar Simone Blum was the only rider to jump every single round without knocking a pole with the stunning chesnut mare DSP Alice to win gold in jumping.
Last month, we celebrated International Women’s Day, and now we are taking some time to look at these women.
Both Canter and Blum have since given birth to their first child and subsequently took a step back from the sport. Do women get a maternity leave when they are professional equestrians? How do the rankings work? And is there ever a good time to take a year out in the current international calendar? (Apart from, perhaps, now, in the middle of this global pandemic!)
Maternity leave
For any self-employed female, a lengthy maternity leave often isn’t an option. In the case of female equestrian athletes, the FEI introduced a rule in 2010 that they would freeze 50% of their ranking points during the time they are taking off to have and care for a child.
With the world rankings, at the end of each month the points earned during that month are added to the list and the points from the same month the previous year are dropped from the list.
Speaking about the announcement in 2010, former world number one and the only female to ever hold the title, German show jumper Meredith Michael-Beerbaum, who had just given birth to her child and had 50% of her points reinstated, said:
“This is great news for all female jumping riders. It means that we can take time out from competition to have a baby and not lose all our rankings points while we’re off the circuit. It’s a really proactive move by the FEI and as far as I know they are the first international governing body to do something like this.”
According to the FEI rules, athletes may request a maternity leave in writing providing the pregnancy is certified in writing by a medical doctor and addressed to the FEI Jumping Director.
During the period which an athlete has officially ceased to compete due to pregnancy, she will retain 50% of the Longines Rankings points earned from the corresponding month of the preceding year until she recommences competing internationally.
The minimum length of time for which an athlete may be granted a maternity leave is six months. If the maternity leave lasts less than six months, no points will be retained from the corresponding month of the preceding year. The maximum length of absence at one time is 12 months.
World number one
Ros Canter (33) became world number one in May 2019, eight months after being crowned the eventing world champion, and just a few months before she gave birth to Ziggy in July 2019. She was the first female to become world number one since Mary King in 2011.
The eventing rankings are based on an athlete’s best six results over a rolling 12-month period. The top points on offer are for a major championship win (161) such as WEG, while winning a CCI5* competition is worth 111.
Britain's Ros Canter on her way to winning gold at the 2018 FEI World Equestrian Games in Tryon \ Nigel Goddard
Her final ride was at Pau CCI5* in October 2018 aboard Zenshera, where she finished fifth, and she returned to the saddle 10 months later, just over a month after giving birth, at Aston-le-Walls with her gold medal-winning mount Allstar B.
The pair then won their return international debut in the CCI4* at Ballindenisk in late September to secure their Olympic qualification.
Canter’s world ranking quite literally fell off a cliff during her 10-month maternity leave.
After becoming the top-ranked rider in the world in May, she was ranked 107th in October 2019 and eventually finished the year in 76th place after a good comeback.
Speaking on the EquiRatings Eventing Podcast, Canter was asked if she felt 100% of FEI ranking points should be frozen for those who go on maternity leave. “It’s a tricky area,” she said. “Eventing is different to other sports. If you’re not competent at it, or doing it at the time, then there has to be an element of needing to prove yourself again because there is that risk involved in it. From that point of view, there is an argument for the points being dropped.
“I wouldn’t argue that, the fact that my points dropped. But I think it is quite depressing that they dropped quite so violently.
"I went from being world number to being down in the hundreds without the space of three or four months, which is slightly odd.
“Quite how you would freeze them, and how the whole system would work, I don’t know. Because it works on a rolling year. That makes it a little tricky, the way they do it,” she added.
The same 12-month rolling rules apply to show jumping rankings, however, the best 30 results count, so the plummet wouldn’t be quite so obvious in the discipline.
High profile Australian Olympic show jumper Edwina Tops-Alexander welcomed her first child in summer 2017 and had repeatedly called for female equestrians to get a ‘proper’ maternity leave. She took exactly six months off between shows. She welcomed her daughter on July 30th and competed at Lausanne CSI5* on September 14th.
She was ranked 13th in the world when she went on maternity leave in March 2017 and on her return in September had slipped to 49th.
Olympic Games postponed
German show jumping world champion Simone Blum announced her pregnancy last September, shortly after helping Germany to win the team silver medal at the FEI European Championships and finishing fourth individually, the highest placed female rider in the competition.
Blum was ranked 87th in the Longines FEI world rankings when she became world champion in 2018. Her highest place since then was 18th in August 2019, and having not competed since the Global Champions Tour in Rome in September, she is now ranked 27th in the world, only dropping three places since September.
Baby Hanna Sophie Blum arrived on February 17th and Blum was still aiming to be fighting fit for the Tokyo Olympic Games at the end of July.
However, the news of postponement until 2021 gives her a live chance at selection.
Writing on social media, Blum said: “The tournament schedule up to the Olympic Games was as good as fixed, it was a tight schedule after the birth of Hanna...But to have the chance to be part of the Olympics once in a lifetime, it was a dream to fight for and to make the best out of the situation!
“Now we do not have a tight schedule, on the contrary, at the moment we have a lot of time. In my situation, the postponement of the Olympics to 2021 is certainly a positive thing because only the baby break and now a time without tournaments would have made it almost impossible to be in top shape at the beginning of August!”