World No.2 eventing rider Jonelle Price has the perfect yardstick and No.1 supporter to help her reach her latest heights, she tells Suzanne McFadden. And now they turn their attention to the Paris Olympics.
This is not a position Jonelle Price usually finds herself in.
To begin with, she’s one half of the first married couple to sit at No.1 and No.2 in the world eventing rankings, alongside her husband, Tim. A “pretty cool” accomplishment, the Kiwi equestrian says, that’s unlikely to be repeated by another duo any time soon.
And she also had the rare opportunity to have the world No.1 rider as her support crew – rather than her competition – this week when she won the prestigious Les Etoiles de Pau CCI5*-L event in France to finish off the Northern Hemisphere season.
Not only is he her esteemed advisor, husband and father of their two children, Tim Price is also her yardstick.
“I’m just trying to keep up with him to be honest,” Jonelle Price says. “He really set the scene with back-to-back wins last month at Boekelo [4*] and Maryland [5*]. I needed to do something a bit special to keep on his tail - and I managed to do so.
“It’s a unique situation having the two of us working together, and even more special when you can ride the crest of a wave at the same time.”
The pair are used to riding against or with each other – they were an integral part of the New Zealand team who won bronze at the FEI world championships at Pratoni in August, where Tim and Falco also won bronze in the individual honours, and Jonelle was 10th on her 15-year-old mount, McClaren.
“When you’re riding, you get yourself into a very different mindset – you’re working,” she says. “So I was very lucky to have Tim at my disposal in Pau ... and he took his role very seriously.
“We’re both fairly relaxed by nature, but certain times it’s imperative that he’s around – or that he’s not. So it’s just knowing when he can go off and have a beer or a round of golf, or when to be there when I need him.”
Of course, all the hard work at Pau was done by the world No.2 rider and her “stroppy, determined” 11-year-old black mare, Grappa Nera.
The pair were in seventh after the cross-country, but a clear round inside time in the showjumping clinched their victory – making sure the trophy Tim Price won last year stays in the family. (Fellow Kiwi Caroline Powell was fifth on her 5* debutant Greenacres Special Cavalier.
Jonelle Price admits the victory – the third pinnacle 5* crown in her career – was “a bit unexpected” on board a horse who’s still relatively inexperienced at the top level of eventing.
“The mare is very much still on the way up,” Price says. “I went in knowing she’s a good horse, but still feeling like we had a lot to prove. It’s one thing to be capable of jumping clear, it’s another to actually pull it off.
"I’ve said all the way that she will be a good horse, and it was just going to be a matter of time. But I thought it would be longer than this week, that’s for sure.”
Price has owned the Dutch-born Grappa Nera – stable name ‘Grape’ – for the past five years, along with the Grape Syndicate, a group of four women led by Brit Jackie Olivier.
“They’re friends, really. They don’t own multiple horses, but they’ve just come on the journey with her. We bought her at the end of her six-year-old year,” Price says.
“This weekend was the first time they’ve all been there together to watch her, so that was well-timed as well.”
It hasn’t been a particularly easy journey, Price admits. Grape can be a little temperamental.
“She’s right up my street, in terms of her being a stroppy little athletic black mare - very tough, very determined,” she says. “All the things I love in a horse, but also all the things I should probably be trying to stay away from. But I can’t help myself.
“She’s been pretty hard work along the way until now. But the thing with these horses, when the going gets tough you know the tough will get going. They really fight for you in the ring. It often takes a big stage for them to rise to the top.”
Grappa Nera has now found her stage. Although they were 13th after the dressage, with a score of 30.1, Price says the horse showed her capability.
“Our dressage at Pau was a few marks off where it would need to be to be worthy of an Olympics. I had four mistakes and still got a good score, so that shows how very good the rest of the work was,” she says.
“So if I can get that tidied up, there’s no reason why she couldn’t be a real consideration [for the 2024 Olympics in Paris].”
Those Olympics are the next big goal for the Prices. Paris would be the fourth Olympics for Jonelle, who won bronze at the 2012 London Games; it would be Tim's third.
“In the ideal world, your Paris horse would probably be at an advanced level now so that your next 18 months are fine tuning rather than still having to progress up the grades,” she says.
“We’d both like to think we have a couple of horses in our yard at the moment who are capable of doing something really worthy in Paris. But it’s a matter of keeping them sound and keeping them tracking on the right trajectory so they can peak at that time, and that’s not easy either.
“It’s about striking a balance of wanting to keep them on the radar for Paris, but honour their careers at the same time. We have to make a living as well; prize money is a big thing, so we can’t be leaving them at home for the next year. They need to be out proving themselves, but equally that comes with risk.
“We need to make sure we have enough strength and depth so we can endure a bump in the road, and still turn up ready to fire come Paris time.”
But before turning their attention to the next big event, there was a wee break as reward for their efforts at the end of the season. The Prices – including their five-year-old son, Otis, and two-year-old daughter Abel – spent a couple of nights at a friend’s house in the south of France. A decent break is on the near horizon.
Now it’s back to their stables on Mere Farm in Wiltshire to train their young horses before heading home to New Zealand for Christmas. It will be the first time in three years the Prices have returned home.
“We’ve been desperate to come home,” Jonelle says. “When the borders finally re-opened, we were in the throes of the season - so we had to resign ourselves to waiting till the start of December. I can’t wait to get back and reacquaint ourselves with all things Kiwi.
“Our daughter was born around the start of Covid, so it’s sad she’s two-and-a-half and she hasn’t met any of her cousins.” Jonelle’s mum and Tim’s dad have both been to the UK this summer to see them.
The Prices would love to stay at the very top of the eventing world, but they know with rankings ticking over each month, their one-two may be short-lived.
“It’s one thing to climb your way up the ladder, but it’s another to stay there,” Jonelle says. “It’s a matter of trying to maintain the top horses we need to achieve these results. Like any athlete, things go wrong, there are injuries, so we’re always trying to keep our strings looking healthy.”
Filling the top two spots wasn’t “meticulously planned,” she says. “But I’d actually have to say that it’s a pretty cool achievement. It's certainly unlikely to be repeated in the near future because there are not many couples where both of them are sustaining a career at the very top end.
“Hopefully it might stand for a few more years to come.”
