Fear of bankruptcy forces Heath Ryan to rethink Games

OLYMPIAN Heath Ryan is likely to forsake the chance to compete at the August Beijing Olympics - for fear of going bankrupt.

His decision is clear: Either he salvages his coaching, breeding and equine trading business, devastated by the horse flu epidemic, or he competes in the Games.
"I should be on top of the world and heading to the Olympics, but reality says I am facing a financial crisis that will prevent that," Ryan said.
Ryan has been involved in eventing as an Olympic team coach and a professional rider for many years. He saw Beijing as a highlight, as he would create history by performing in both the dressage and three-day team events.
But he concedes that if the team's preparation, which has been devastated by EI, requires him to go to the Northern Hemisphere in March, he will have to make the hardest decision of his riding career.
"If the selectors demand we go north, I wouldn't be able to go. I would go under financially," he said.
"I am a coach and earn about $120,000 a year from that, but because of EI I didn't earn a cent. I am a breeder. The annual income from that is about $600,000, but you can forget all of that, too. I sell horses, but I can't earn income from that either because the horses can't leave the property.
"So you work it out. It's either save my property and business or go to the Olympics," he said.
Ryan is the No. 1 dressage rider in the nation and also would make the three-day event team - something that has never been done.
"It has taken an entire lifetime to get here, but I may not be going to the Olympics. I have been severely sabotaged. We are getting slaughtered in so many ways," Ryan said of the EI impact on non-racing people.
"If the government does not provide financial help there will be an almighty crash in the horse industry, the third- largest in the nation.
"There are people losing their homes, their properties, their businesses.
"The government has provided $200 million, most of which has gone to the thoroughbred industry.
"Yet the majority of horse people cannot get a cent.
"It is un-Australian.
"It has been a case of the government looking after the fat cats and walking all over the top of the little Aussie battler.
"The people who are going down in this catastrophe are the backbone of the horse industry, but they don't have a public profile.
"The ramifications will be horrendous. I think we are heading towards a national crisis which is yet to be considered by the government.
"I have seen specific cases of people losing everything.
"It's about time the government listened to the silent majority and stopped thinking that only thoroughbred racing has suffered at the hands of EI," Ryan said.
20th Jan 2008.