Tinney risks all for Olympic selection

SYDNEY Olympic gold medallist Stuart Tinney will risk $100,000 on his bid to win selection in the three-day-event team for the Beijing Games.
With their horse business devastated by equine influenza in the past six months, Tinney and his wife Karen have had to borrow the money from her family to finance his European campaign to qualify for the Olympics.
The EI crisis was officially declared over in NSW last week, but the full impact is still being felt by leading Australian-based riders as they try to resurrect their Olympic campaigns.
Some, like Sydney rider Shane Rose, will contest the Sydney international three-day event from April 17 to 20, but most will depart for England in the next month to take advantage of the European season.
But that opportunity comes with a hefty price tag for those such as Tinney, who have younger horses that need to show their worth at the highest level.
Olympic squad members Emily Anker, Sonja Johnson, Janelle Pitts and Wendy Schaeffer are all heading overseas.
"From the Olympic point of view the crisis is not over," Tinney said yesterday.
"We haven't had any income since August and we're still trying to put together an Olympic campaign. We've spent $5000 on drugs alone from the vet. If anyone would like to help we would be glad to have them."
Equestrian Australia has applied to the federal Government for special funding to help the Olympic contenders finance their European campaigns but is still waiting for an answer.
Olympic stalwart Tinney said the financial burden, and his responsibilities to his family, took him close to admitting defeat in his Olympic bid.
"But Karen was very positive. If she hadn't been, I might have given this one up and looked at the next one (London in 2012)," Tinney said.
"But the horses are ready for this one. You buy them six years out and prepare them and you don't want to waste all that time. It was a very difficult decision because of the financial situation but we didn't have a choice if we wanted to go to the Olympics."
Tinney will also have to sell two of the horses he had earmarked for the London Games to keep his Beijing campaign afloat.
The Australian Sports Commission has come through with extra funding for the national squad to offset the hardship, but Tinney said that would only cover the transport costs of his leading horse Vettori.
However, he also has high hopes for his young mare Panamera, who is unproven at the highest level. "I will take her to Badminton (the world's most prestigious horse trials in May), I think she's up to it, she's a wonderful horse," he said.
He will leave for England on March 18 with six horses.
Rose, whose Olympic horse All Luck was an early EI victim, accepts that he may be hurting his chances by staying home, but said he could not afford to go to Europe. "I also think the ideal preparation for my horse is to do one event in March-April and then to prepare at home.
"There's absolutely a possibility that three or four people could go overseas and do well and put me at a disadvantage, but I am hoping a good performance in Sydney will be sufficient because I have proved that I can compete in Europe."