At Home with Chris Burton

This article is from the July 2020 Horse Deals magazine.

Article: Rachel Clayfield

It was a crisp, wintery night in early June when I kicked back for a yarn with Aussie export Chris Burton who was happy to boast about the unbelievable weather in the UK; they’d had two or three weeks of blue skies and not a breath of wind. Burto was on his morning coffee break in the sunshine, with his two sons Harry and Jack squealing happily, playing in the background. It was almost as if the proud father didn’t have a stable full of superstar eventers, six of which are in contention for a position on the postponed Tokyo Olympic Games team.

Chris, what’s life like in the UK at the moment with COVID-19? I would say that the UK government has done a good job — as good as they could have in the circumstances — like every government is trying to do. But no one really knows the right answer about when things are going to start opening back up, which is the sad truth. Naturally, because we were a bit slow going into lockdown here, we’ll be a bit slower coming out of lockdown. Things are starting to relax but unfortunately, there isn’t much sign of competition recommencing. We’d love to have something to gnaw on, something to aim for with the horses.

You spoke previously about moving the goalposts as things change… I’m guessing you’re not sure where the goalposts are at the moment? Yes, exactly. The nice thing is that it’s been a great opportunity to ride the young horses, who have benefited so much. We are fortunate that we are in such an amazing place here at Lower Chapel Marsh Farm which is Chedington Equestrian.

How many horses are currently in your stables? I don’t like to count them, there’s too many, but I’ve got about 12 or 13 performance horses in work. That keeps me out of trouble. I’ve been trying to stagger my rides through the week and as I said the young ones are learning lots. It’s amazing that in the competition season, we get very little time to work on the young ones, but now we can be diligent and pragmatic about their training and think it through. The older horses are a bit of a quandary. We believe that they are better off in some kind of work, so they are doing strength work. Again we are really spoiled here, we have an aqua treadmill and amazing hills for hacking on, so we do that and a bit of flatwork to continue their training; targeted and specific training for each advanced horse. The saddest thing is that I have an amazing team of eventing horses and nowhere to go.

Are you using the opportunity to nail some of those issues you weren’t able to during competition season? That’s right. For example, I’ve just been fortunate enough to have an eight-year-old purchased for myself, and he is a really exciting horse with a lot of Thoroughbred blood. The previous owners decided to stay away from flying changes though and so when I tried a flying change, he almost left the building. Previously, during competition season, we might’ve been trying to keep things smoothed over, now I’m able to really school those things intensively and say ‘c’mon buddy, when corona’s over, we’re going to have flying changes.’

How many horse owners are you currently working with and how does the relationship work? There’s a couple of horses that are in partnerships, for example, some of my best owners, Carolyn Townsend and Sue Lawson own some together, and there are some others in syndicates or small groups of two or three. Then there’s, of course, those who own the horses outright like Clever Louis, Polystar and Quality Purdey.

Having owners was a decision that I made years ago, back when my parents supported me and when my uncle gave me some money to travel to Badminton and Burghley in 2004, where I based with Sam Griffiths. Sam only had nine horses and didn’t own many, if any, of them and I remember thinking that was a good business model. It’s how I’ve modelled my own business ever since. We might own a quarter or a half share occasionally, or buy and sell a young one here or there, but our business model is very much a safe one; at no stage do I have to outlay a great deal of money for those horses. I imagine the riders over here who own their horses and deal and sell to make their money, would be struggling at the moment.

How do you tackle the risk that comes with the possibility of losing rides when you have owners? There is always that risk, and that’s a part of my industry, and a lot of it is taking care of these amazing owners I have. We are really lucky that we have a great relationship with our supporters and sponsors. Equally, like anyone, I’ve lost rides, had horses sold on me, and that’s just part of the business. I have to be grateful for every ride.

Which is your most exciting horse in the stables at the moment? This question keeps plaguing me; obviously, my colleagues for Tokyo were keen to know, the selectors were putting pressure on me, and the team vets kept making targeted questions. I’ve got five qualified for Tokyo which will carry over for next year — and the nice thing is I’m hoping to have another one qualified by next year — and there is no choosing between them. It is unbelievable, I don’t even know where to start.
I think Quality Purdey has performed very well and is a tough horse, everyone really likes her and she likes to win. Polystar is one of the nicest animals I’ve ever sat on, I absolutely love him. He’s the most beautiful thing and I am very grateful to Trisha Rickard for the ride on him.

He could be very amazing. Lawton Chloe would be excellent, she’s very good on the flat and very careful in the two phases of jumping. She’s a blood horse and will run all day. And then there’s Clever Louis who burst on to the scene when our sponsors here at Chedington, Lower Chapel Marsh Farm, Kate and Geoffry Guy, purchased him for me. He has just been outstanding. He won the eight and nine-year-old at Blenheim — really prestigious classes that everyone wants to win — and then he went to Boekelo and came second on a countback. Lastly there’s Graf Liberty who is an incredible cross country horse.

As we get closer to the Games, one or two of them will start to outperform the others, but at this stage, I’m just grateful of what a strong position I am in and equally anxious because I’ve been in strong positions before and things can go so wrong so easily, as any equestrian would know.

You’re so diplomatic Chris, not wanting to pick favourites. There’s not even a favourite and exciting young horse? The other one that is really exciting is a horse called Jefferson 18, who is a beautiful looking horse. He has just been re-syndicated from the ownership of Emily Guy to having her father buy a third, Katie Harvey buy a third and the actor Martin Clunes, who lives next to us, bought a third. He’s a horse that we think a lot of, hopefully I can get him to a 4*-L by the end of this year. I have no qualms about him doing well. Then I think he could be potentially a very interesting horse for Tokyo.

How are you feeling about the postponed Olympics? I haven’t been too disappointed with it. In this sport, you learn how to just deal with the lows, and there are many highs and lows. It was a shame having so many good horses ready but I hope that the older ones aren’t getting too old and I hope the others are just as right next year. I hope that things will run smoothly and that we either find a way to live with coronavirus or find a vaccine; that would allow us to prepare for the Games and carry on with life similar to what we knew.

Can you tell us about being involved in the Australian High Performance Squad? I love talking about the High Performance Squad and I loathe hearing people bad mouth the high performance program that Australia has at the moment, it’s in such a good state. The program is led incredibly well by Chris Webb, who has pulled together the program you see today and managed to unite us. He wants more than anything for Australia to win gold medals at the Olympics. Equally, I have been on the other side too, back before I had been selected, and you do feel a bit on the outside. High performance has to be brutal though, they have to select the riders they think are going to win and look after those. How else are you going to run a program?

Of late, as part of the squad, we’ve been having online video meetings and they’ve been healthy, encouraged people and kept us connected. It’s good to be able to ask each other how we’ve been going or what we’ve been up to, get opinions and bounce ideas off of each other. That’s been really positive. We’ve started riding through the Tokyo dressage test, filming it and sending it through to each other, and sometimes a dressage trainer or judge, and getting feedback on how to prepare and train. The latest incredible opportunity has been having Nelson Pessoa and his brother send through a showjumping course that we are each building on our own facilities and jumping around. Then we are having a critique online by sending the video through. This is something I’ve been very grateful for because it gives us an aim. It’s great to see all the other lovely horses jump around too and it’s a healthy pressure for those who maybe aren’t at that top standard yet.

One of Australia’s weaknesses, certainly one of the threats we have been faced with as an eventing nation, has been the divide between the overseas-based riders and Australian based riders. Amazingly, it took a global pandemic for us to realise how easy it is for us to have an online meeting from time to time. I can’t believe we haven’t thought of it before, it’s been really positive and I hope it will help close the gap a bit.

Was the case previously that you wouldn’t be all that involved with the rest of the team until they had travelled over? I mean, a lot of them are my friends, so we do catch up when I’m back home, but you’re absolutely right. There have previously been teams that have been thrown together at the last minute and we’ll be on a team with a horse and rider that we’ve never seen compete before. That’s a tough thing, so this is a way of making us feel more united.

I can hear in the background Harry and Jack playing, how is family life going? Look I don’t want to sound overly privileged, but this is one of the things I’ve enjoyed the most about the coronavirus; I get through my work, then I come and spend more time with my children and be a really good dad — it’s great, I love it.

Do Harry and Jack have a pony yet? They do. We’ve just had a second one arrive actually. I’d love nothing more than for them to take up tennis or golf, or something useful so they could make a bit of money and I could be a kept father. But sadly, I think they love horse riding so I’ll see where that goes. No of course, nothing would make me more proud than if one of them was to follow in my footsteps and be a professional rider. I could save them from all the mistakes I made — or I don’t know I could be the worst soccer-dad ever.

Quickfire Questions

What was the last TV show you watched? I absolutely loved the Netflix Series called The Last Dance, all about Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls.

What music are you listening to? I’m really getting into 80’s rock and old school stuff. I’m listening to a lot of Cold Chisel at the moment.

What’s your signature dish? That’s a tough one. I considered myself a good cook until my amazing wife came along and now I eat like a king. We love Asian cuisine but I still love a roast pork.

Favourite Aussie beer? Well no, I’ve embarrassed myself now because I just drink Corona at the moment. Depends where I am, I drink what the locals drink; when I go home to my dad’s they drink mid-strength, or at Shane Rose’s we drink Tooheys.

But one of the first things I do when I land in Australia is get a Dare iced coffee and a Mrs Mac’s pie from the service station.

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