Posted March 15, 2006

Chris Kappler: “Instant gratification” is Not in His Vocabulary!

Wellington, FL - March 13, 2006 - Career highs and lows are inevitable in competitive sport, more so when you add four legs to the partnership equation. For the unassuming Chris Kappler, winning Team Gold and Individual Silver Medals at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens was admittedly the most bittersweet experience of his entire life from which he personally wondered whether he would ever fully recover.

Now, on the downhill stretch to his 40th birthday, and better known as a strong silent type than a gregarious orator, Chris Kappler is stoically rebuilding his career, post Royal Kaliber, with the loving support of his wife Jenny. His right-hand (wo)man for 14 years, she provides a strong foundation and the spearhead in their partnership, and together they are both looking towards the long-term future with great fortitude. “I’m a planner, very methodical, a thinker, so the partnerships I’ve had over the years with my horses have developed slowly and endured for long periods of time,” Chris says, adding; “One of the most gratifying aspects of this career is developing new talent, bringing young horses along. In my younger days I developed quite a reputation for handling difficult or problematic horses, which is how I came to acquire a few of my former show jumping partners.”

An early riser, Chris is usually in his barn around 5:00 a.m., and spends the best part of every day with his horses. Truthfully, they get under his skin because Chris personally attends to every aspect of their individual management, down to the minutest details, “what they eat, how they’re groomed, their medication….” Jenny laughingly adds: “He’s always petting them, kissing them … they really are his pets.”

Chris’s competition agenda now includes students Caroline Kelly and Miasha Fisher, talented junior riders who travel extensively with the Kappler entourage and are just starting to jump Grand Prix classes. For the period of Wellington’s annual Winter Equestrian Festival, everyone decamps to Florida, including the 32-horse string that currently occupies Chris’s Hunterdon barn in New Jersey. At their head is the nine-year-old mare VDL Oranta who joined him a year ago as, “a very smart, scopey mare who just needs mileage. I’m being very careful with her because she’s so intelligent. There were some rideability issues when I first got her so I’ve been slowly building her confidence with good experiences, and really handling her with kid gloves.” In fact, she’s an opinionated mare who would gleefully turn the other way if it suited her. However, her progress is a great source of joy to Chris, and he can barely hide a grin each time they exit the show ring. “She’s his new love,” Jenny adds, “and he will inevitably shoulder the blame for any of her shortcomings.”

Typically, Chris is a fan of horses with more blood, more refined. “I’ve certainly had to make do in the past, but given a choice I do prefer the more thoroughbred type of jumper. I’ve had scopey warmbloods that I’ve enjoyed riding very much, but for an everyday Nations Cup horse it’s the thoroughbred types who still have good energy for the second round.”

Chris admits that his horses do not follow a typical jumper regime. “I would say definitely ‘no’. I’m personally involved with their exercise, riding eight to ten horses a day at home. This includes light days when they are hacked out by exercise riders so I can focus on their work programs for strength and fitness. I have a very long-term plan for all my horses, never over-working or over-jumping them because I like a horse to always jump fresh and with personality. My particular program lends itself to that, but it’s a fine line between exuberance and maintaining concentration.” Interestingly, Chris doesn’t own a lunge line and can’t remember the last time he used one.

If Chris’s horses could talk, he felt there would be a general consensus: “All my horses are confident with me because I’m very fair with them. I never lose my temper, but also don’t spoil them. I treat them like children in terms of their care, but they all have a defined training program and respond very well in that environment.”

Chris confessed that when Royal Kaliber arrived the Kappler household on its head. “He was so special that everything else used to stop while we focused attention on him.” The Dutch Warmblood stallion, with a very impressive pedigree, came to Chris as an eight-year-old from an amateur rider who had jumped him up to 1.30m. He hit his career peak in 2004 by contributing to the USA’s Olympic Team Gold and Chris’s Individual Silver Medal in Athens. Unfortunately, history cannot be rewritten and Royal Kaliber’s untimely passing represented a huge loss for Chris, his family, and for United States show jumping.

However … by sheer coincidence, with a view to the stallion pursuing a dual career in both show jumping and breeding, a semen sample was collected for approval testing and the small surplus resulted in four offspring. “Frank Chapot has one, given to him as a gift by the Kamines (Royal Kaliber’s owners), they have one baby themselves, and a client of Frank Chapot’s has another. The fourth was sold to Europe.”

If destiny comes full circle, all these offspring, apart from the one in Europe, could return to Chris in the future, especially the yearling filly the Kamines are raising expressly for this purpose. Chris said, “She is Royal Kaliber’s clone. She looks like him, she walks like him, she acts like him,” and by a quick calculation, she would be reaching her peak, at the age of 11, for the 2016 Olympic Games, wherever they might be held.

Meanwhile, Chris is focusing on preparing for the 2007 Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro with VDL Oranta to avoid over-facing her with selection trials with a view to this year’s World Equestrian Games (WEG). “In the perfect world she would have been ready for WEG, but they’re living, breathing beings and it’s not fair to ask them to be something they’re not.”

In a perfect world, Chris Kappler will celebrate another Team Gold for the United States, as well as top honors individually with Oranta in Rio next year. In a perfect world …!

Photo Credit: Chris Kappler receiving his Team Gold and Individual Silver Medals at a special ceremony at the Winter Equestrian Festival. Photo by Randi Muster.