When little Joanne Eccles jumped on her neighbour’s horse twelve years ago, she could never have expected how far jumping on and off a steed would actually take her.

At eight-years-old, she had been called upon to form the top of a human pyramid, on horseback.  Being much smaller and lighter than her teenage accomplices, she was perfect fodder for firing to the top, and probably less fearful of a fall too.  That was Joanne’s first introduction to horse vaulting.
 
Most of us would associate ‘horse vaulting’ with a ‘vaulting horse’, something we all did in PE at school – sprinting up to a trampet, springing into the air and attempting some sort of acrobatic leap over a large cuboid-shaped wooden structure– the ‘horse’.

But believe it or not, there is such a thing as real horse vaulting too – and it is quite literally what it sounds like: doing gymnastic and acrobatic stunts on the back of a moving horse.  And Joanne is the recently crowned horse vaulting European Champion.  Aged-20 and studying dentistry at Glasgow University, the girl from Tillicoultry is slowly coming to terms with what she has just achieved.

Before the summer, a British vaulter had never won a medal at a major championships.  Now, we have a European champion, all thanks to Joanne... and her dad, sister, mum and brother, as In The Winning Zone found out when we met her near her student-flat in central Glasgow.

“I don’t know if there’s ever been a podium place for the whole family but mine certainly deserve one,” said Joanne of her win at the Euros, held in Malmo, Sweden.

“It’s just amazing the way my whole family are involved.  There aren’t a lot of groups out there like us.  My Dad and my sister and me compete all in competitions.  Then my mum comes along to watch and sometimes my brother might drive the lorry to the event.”

In the beginning, it was just Joanne.  Once she got into the vaulting, she attended a club in Gleneagles, 20 miles away from her farm-house home in Clackmannanshire.  She didn’t initially hold out much hope for her family getting involved too.

“The farm we live on is where my Dad grew up, so when he was younger his sisters all had horses and he told himself, ‘I’m never having a horse’.  My mum wasn’t into them either. 

“But we got this pony for me and my sister to play, then Dad came with me to watch the first vaulting international I had been to, and he got into it as well, so we got a horse!  It all started from there really, and now we have four horses and run a vaulting club – the Wee County Vaulters!”

Though vaulting is a sport recognised under the umbrella of the British Equestrian Association and the world governing body Fédération Équestre Internationale (FEI), even ‘horse people’ sometimes need an introduction.

“Even when you speak to show jumpers and people who are into horses here, they will still not understand the sport,” explains Joanne.

“It is one of the eight FEI disciplines, and everyone knows about dressage and show jumping, but not vaulting.  It all just gets passed over.  The more high level show jumpers and stuff will know about it, but if you just go to a local horse show not very many folk will be aware of vaulting.”

Joanne’s rise to success hasn’t been of the whirlwind nature.  Her win at the Euros last month is the culmination of years and years of hard work, sacrifice and trial and error. 

“The club is on our farm, we have a tiny arena and a stable.  We look after all the horses and Dad trains then.  They take a lot of looking after – feeding, mucking them out, grooming, sending them out to the field.  And of course the vaulting.

“We have the club twice a week.  Then I do extra training on top of that.  If we are training a horse up it takes a long time.  It took a year-and-a-half to train Henry, the horse I won the European Championships on.”

As the sport is so unknown in Britain, there was no ‘template’ from which Joanne, her sister and her Dad could base their training upon.  They coached and conditioned themselves to this level, which makes their achievement all the more impressive.

“We had to develop a lot of the training ourselves.  When we started we trained twice a week and we also went to gymnastics.  But we have been trying to work out how we can gain as much as we can, and we decided that fitness is the key.  I started running a lot more, five times a week, and went on some strength programmes too.

“We also have something called ‘the barrel’, that’s our fake horse. It’s an oil drum on legs basically.  And we will train on the horse three times a week. 

“I got some training programmes from a vaulter in Germany who is a two-time world champion.  It’s all floor exercises like press-ups and using a gym-ball.  And then we use a trampoline too. 

“We needed all the knowledge about muscle groups and training programmes.  So we recently got in touch with Adam Cox [the 2006 Commonwealth Games bronze medallist gymnast from West Lothian].  He came up to give us some programmes, and he’s going to put us through a fitness test!”

And like any equine sport, it isn’t cheap to be successful, though her the Wee County Club does its best to make vaulting affordable for all.

“For the people coming to the club it is probably one of the cheaper horse sports, they just pay £6 and come along for the evening.  They don’t have the upkeep of the horse to worry about.  It’s different for us because we are so involved in the sport and keep our own horses.  I rely on Mum and Dad for pretty much everything.”

So how did they go from being back-yard amateurs to Kings (and Queens) of the continent?

“We started off really poorly when we first went to competitions like that, finishing last every time.  So it’s unreal that we’re now European champions.  We used to go only three internationals a year – one at Easter, one in the summer and then the championships. 

“But in 2006 I made it to tenth in the word individually, and through that we started to get invites to more competitions.  That obviously gives us more chance to compete, and it helps us to network more as well.  The more you get seen, the more the judges will know you.  And the more people you know the more help you can get.”

In international competitions like the Euros, there’s a freestyle discipline and a compulsory one.  Britain has traditionally always been poor at the compulsory, because it is so technical. 

“We were better at freestyle because you can make it up yourself.  But making these contacts helped to us improve our technical ability and get better at the compulsory stuff. 

“We have been improving all the time, and a feeling we could win a medal at the European Championships.  This season has been really good for us and we have won every international we had been to, so we were hoping that if we kept on track we would be up there competing for a medal. 

“It was more open this year than ever before.  It was in Sweden so the Germans, Austrians and Swiss, who dominate in their own country, didn’t have home advantage.  And there were six judges, all from different nations.

“Plus, the winner last year, who was also the world champion, retired, so the top spot was open too.  So we hoped for a medal, but as we got closer and won another international, we felt ‘maybe we can do this.’

“Then in the competition I ended up winning the compulsory round, which has never happened before, which put us in a very strong position to go on and win the freestyle, which we did.

“It’s a bit crazy.  We got back two weeks ago and I am still thinking ‘My goodness, we actually managed to do it!’”

Finally, seeing she is the ITWZ / SUS Student Athlete of the Month, how does she Joanne find balancing her sporting career with a demanding degree like dentistry in Glasgow?

“So far it has been OK.  I have a flat in Glasgow but home is only 40 minutes away.  I’m a pretty rubbish student from a social point of view, because if I have a day off I go home and train! And I’m home at the weekends too.
“During the week in Glasgow I do a lot of uni work, but I will do my running and strength sessions in too, so that when I go home I am ready to jump on the horse, forget about uni and just focus on the vaulting.

“I would much rather vault and achieve something than do the normal student stuff – all the drinking and partying.  I have a lot more fun doing what I love.  I still go out with my friends during the week, but it’s just not the ‘hardcore’ student lifestyle.”

RO
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