*Australia seeks equestrian record in scandalous competition*
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By Brooke Edwards 
SportsTicker Contributing Editor 

SYDNEY, Australia (Ticker) -- While the rest of the world vies
for glory in the dressage and show-jumping events at the
upcoming Olympics in Sydney, host Australia's eventing team has
its sights set on a record third gold medal. 

Two-time Olympic champion Andrew Hoy will lead the Aussie
eventing team of veterans Matt Ryan, 1992 gold medalist and
Atlanta crony Phillip Dutton as well as rookies Brook Staples,
Amanda Ross and Stuart Tinney. 

The hosts will have to watch out for a powerful New Zealander
team, confident Americans as well as the British and German
teams. 

David O'Connor, who will ride his 1996 Olympic team silver-medal
mount Giltedge, is the anchor of the American team, along with
his wife, Karen, aboard 1999 Rolex-Kentucky four-star winner
Prince Panache. 

They will be joined by Pan American Games individual bronze
medalist Abigail Lufkin, who will substitute injured mount Jacob
Two for the less experienced Hannigan. 

Other Americans chosen to be among the four team members and
three individual competitors are Robert Costello on Chevalier,
Nina Fout, who will ride 3 Magic Beans, and Julie Black mounting
Hyde Park Corner. 

Despite the stiff competition, the Aussies will no doubt benefit
from home-soil advantage and fresh horseflesh, with other teams
forced to make the grueling, interminable trip with their mounts
to the isolated continent. 

Some 240 horses will have flown halfway across the planet for
the Games, along with 100 tons of equipment and 164 grooms in a
$4 million dollar operation. 

And of course, a trip of that magnitude, unsettles the horses,
can make them ill and possibly cause injury during
transportation. 

For non-Australian horses, the trip is followed by two weeks in
quarantine. 

The Aussies' bid was given a further boost when British
three-day event rider Rodney Powell suffered a broken leg during
a training run when he was thrown from his mount Flintstone in
his final build-up to the Games and ruled out of the Olympic
contest. 

Germany will aim for a staggering fifth gold medal in the
dressage team event, as in the individual performance, where
their greatest threat will come in the form of Dutch rider Anky
Van Grunsven, ranked No. 1 in the world. 

Winner in Atlanta, Germany is expected to dominate the show
jumping, along with Brazil. 

Brazil's top class show jumper in Rodrigo Pessoa is also a
strong contender for a medal along with riders from Germany,
Switzerland, Britain and the United States, which is entering
its first all-female Olympic jumping team in history. 

"It's a sport where men and women compete equally," said
42-year-old Margie Goldstein-Engle, who will lead the American
jumping team. "And the women (spectators) get behind you when
you have an all-woman team; and some of the men do, too." 

The American are fielding a team which has no Olympic
experience.  But the team is feeling confident. 

"I think we have a good shot at a medal," said Goldstein-Engle,
who will be flanked by Nona Garson, Laura Kraut and Lauren
Hough. 

"All things being equal, we should do very well at Sydney," said
Olympic selection spokesman Jim Dunn. "If we look at the
performances of these four years, compared to Atlanta and
Barcelona there's no question." 

Like the United States, Australia's show jumping team is made up
exclusively of promising young rookies all making their first
Olympic appearance, and includes Jamie Coman, Jeff Bloomfield,
Ron Easey and Gavin Chester, all with experience in the World
Cup finals. 

Though the Games haven't even begun, the equestrian event
already has been the focus of intense attention and speculation.

A light plane crash-landed near the Olympic Equestrian venue at
Horsley Park last month, after experiencing engine trouble and
ditching near the dressage arena at the Olympic venue, about 25
miles west of downtown Sydney. Neither the pilot nor the
passenger were seriously injured. 

In an even messier situation, double Olympic champion Mark Todd,
a key member of New Zealand's eventing team, was embroiled in a
sex and cocaine scandal, and recently underwent a voluntary drug
test to clear his name. 

An eventing gold medalist at Los Angeles in 1984 and Seoul in
'88, Todd was accused by Britain's Sunday Mirror newspaper of
using the recreational drug, and despite being cleared in doping
tests, rumors have to swirl around the Kiwi. 

Adding to the drama, Romanian rider Viorel Bobau was banned from
the Sydney Games after being accused of stealing his horse from
its Austrian owners. 

Bobau, who had missed out on the Barcelona Olympics when his
horse fell sick, had needed only to finish a trial in Germany to
qualify for Sydney, but was stopped at the Hungary-Austria
border and charged with stealing his mount Carnaval. 

st 09-15-00 05:12 et