Todd’s stance defended

Press, 22 October 1984, Page 28

Todd’s stance defended

PA Wellington The company that leased the Olympic champion horse, Charisma, has defended the rider, Mark Todd, against criticism by the horse’s owner. Mrs Fran Clarke has said Todd is being immature about the amount of money wanted for lease or sale of the horse. Todd said Mrs Clarke was asking a ridiculous amount, a point the managing director of Woolrest, Mr Bill Hall, agreed with, Mrs Clarke not complain about the 10 cent

lease for the horse because it was Mark Todd who had developed the horse into a winner, Mr Hall said yesterday. Charisma was a “mediocre” horse when Mrs Clarke, of Taupo, paid sev-. eral thousand dollars for it, he said. “Mark Todd picked the thing up and spent day and night training the horse, and brought it up to a standard that made it worth a lot more money. He did all that work,” he said. “If she is going to sell it, Mark should be entitled to

part of the earnings.” Mrs Clarke had turned down offers by Woolrest to buy the horse so. Mark Todd could continue riding it, he said. On Mrs Clarke’s claim that Todd was being immature about a lease, Mr Hall said: “She has been the difficult one from the start.” Mrs Clarke had kept the rider up in the air about the availability of the horse while he was undergoing vital Olympic preparations. “It was a dreadful situation for someone trying to compete at that level,” he

said. Mr Hall said there was not much money to be made from eventing — Woolrest was entitled to winnings Charisma made because of its lease but it had never taken any, he said. It had told Todd to keep the few thousand pounds the horse made. “There is no great big stake money in this business,” he said. “It is mainly prestige and she (Mrs Clarke) has had all the glory and the prestige while someone else has had all the work and worry.”

Mr Hall said Todd was riding another Woolrest horse, Nightlife, but it was not in the same class as Charisma. Mrs Clarke, in a recent interview, said Charisma had not been a novice, unknown horse before Mark Todd began riding it. It had been trained by Sharon Deardon, who was once nominated for Olympics. “When Mark got it, it was a medium grade dressage horse, B-grade showjumper and won a two-day event at Canterbury," Mrs Clarke said.