RINGWOULD JAGUAR
( JENSENS MAN / Nations Of Lili)
At the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, RINGWOULD JAGUAR created history as the first Australian Stock Horse to win an Olympic medal. The brilliant black gelding and his rider Sonja Johnson helped carry Australia to a silver medal in the Team Eventing competition.
Adapted from an article by Anna Sharpley, Nov / Dec 2008 ASH Journal. Photo by Julie Wilson
RINGWOULD JAGUAR was bred in Western Australia by Jim and Gussie Saunders in 1991. Dan and Phoebe Johnson took the horse on for their daughter Sonja to ride, even though she‘ needed another horse like a hole in the head’. Sonja’ s graciousness paid dividends almost immediately, as Jaguar rocketed through the grades.
With help from The Australian Stock Horse Society, [‘ they really helped me out big time, the Society has always been very supportive’], Jag made his first international appearance at the Eventing World Cup in Pau, France in 2004 where he took fifth place. Thought unlucky not to be selected for the Athens Olympics, Sonja and Jag set out to make the selectors see the error of their ways. They were members of the victorious Trans Tasman Team at the Adelaide Four Star in 2005, won Melbourne Three Star in 2006, Taupo, New Zealand in 2007 and Sydney in 2008. Also in 2006 Sonja and Jag were members of the Bronze Medal Team at the World Equestrian Games in Aachen, Germany.
Jag was not going to be overlooked again, and was in great form leading up to the July departure for Hong Kong, despite his 17 years. The new Olympic Eventing format involved five horse and rider combinations competing, with the top three scores at the end of the three phases determining the Team Medals. After the dressage phase, Sonja and Jag were in 23rd place( of 69) with a dressage score of 45.20. They produced a good test, but Sonja was a little disappointed with the score, although they were only 15 penalties behind the leader, Australia’ s Lucinda Fredericks. But when the real action started, Sonja and Jag started moving north on the leader board.
The cross country phase was held at Beas River about 45 minutes from the main stadium at Sha Tin. All the horses travelled out the night before and the competition began at 8am, with a midday finish to avoid the worst of the heat. The course was technical and required skill, agility and stamina, in other words, a course that would suit the little Australian Stock Horse that claims to be 16hh.( In his high heels perhaps!) And suit him it did, with Jag coming home clear with the fifth fastest time of the day.( Sonja was a little miffed at only being fifth fastest).‘ I didn’ t take a long route anywhere out there’. Straight off the cross country Sonja was high with excitement and full of praise for her horse.‘ He was awesome, back to the old Jag, he was just glorious and so adjustable. He knows a lot more than me, I’ m convinced. He’ s amazing, he knows how to conserve his energy and he knows how to leave all the fences untouched and he knows his job is to go through the red and the white flags. I don’ t love him for nothing; he’ s a great little Stock Horse’.
After cross country day Sonja and Jag had moved up to 13th place. 57 of the original 69 moved on to the showjumping phase, conducted under lights the next night. 12 combinations jumped clear, and Jaguar was one of them and the only Australian to do
Sonja Johnson and RINGWOULD JAGUAR with the silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
so. This effort moved them to ninth place with a total of 58.80 penalties, and a score that counted for the Team along with Megan Jones and Clayton Fredericks. The top 25 horses went into the more difficult showjumping round to determine the Individual Medals. At the end of a long, hot competition, Jag had two rails down to finish in tenth place, and a Team silver medal to show for his efforts.
RINGWOULD JAGUAR competed for two more years with success after the Beijing Olympics. He was retired in 2010 after the World Equestrian Games in Kentucky, USA, and now enjoys the quiet life on the Johnson’ s farm near Albany, Western Australia.
Julie Wilson
Australian Stock Horse Society 1971- 2011 41