Christopher Bartle

The Early Years

Chris Bartle was educated at Ampleforth College and the University of Bristol where he obtained a BSc(Econ) with honours in Economics. After his university years Chris was an amateur jockey, but being 5ft11 he struggled to keep his weight down in order to establish himself. This prompted his first spell in Three day eventing. He was initially trained by his mother, Mrs Nicole Bartle and then later by Hans von Blixen-Finecke, Jr., (A Double Gold Medalist at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics for Three day Eventing).

Dressage

While preparing for the 1976 Burghley Horse Trials Bartle's horse, Wily Trout, picked up a tendon injury that forced the horse into retirement from eventing. However, Wily Trout showed potential in dressage. One year later Bartle was competing at the World Championships as an individual. The combination went on to become part of the British Dressage Team from 1981-1987. In this time Bartle competed at the 84' Summer Olympics in Los Angeles for the British team. The team came 8th, but Chris Bartle tied for 6th in the individual event to make history by becoming the highest placed British rider, a record he still held as of January 2011. Chris and Wily Trout's last major contribution in dressage came when they was second placed at the first Dressage World Cup Final in 's-Hertogenbosch 1986. This period was capped off when Bartle was awarded the British Equestrian Federation's Medal of Honour in 1986.

Three Day Eventing

Bartle then took the opportunity to turn back to eventing and had a whole host of successes which included winning team Gold at the 1997 European Championships with the British Event Team, before winning the prestigious Badminton Horse Trials in 1998, on Word Perfect II, owned by Elaine and Adrian Cantwell. He also travelled with Word Perfect to the Sydney Olympics in 2000, as reserve.

Past Rides

British National Team

After his successful Dressage period Bartle was invited to train the British Eventing team, where he went to the 96' Atlanta and 00' Sydney Olympic games. In 1995 Christopher Bartle received the British Horse Society's Trainers Award, and in 2001 was awarded Honorary Fellowship of the British Horse Society.

German National Team

Since 2001 Chris has been the National Coach to the German Olympic Three Day Event Team - Winners of Team and Individual Gold medals at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and Michael Jung, Individual World Champion Kentucky 2010. His experience led to him writing Training the Sport Horse, which he co-authored with Gilliam Newsum. The book was published by J. A. Allen in 2004.

Training Individuals

Locally Christopher Bartle trains many British International level riders, notably for many years the British team rider Nicola Wilson from Northallerton, North Yorkshire.

Yorkshire Riding Centre

Bartle has been the Managing Director and resident instructor at the Yorkshire Riding Centre for many years, developing a wealth of knowledge. He does not exclusively teach international or high level competition riders, and is known to teach developing riders on their own horses.

Accomplishments

Dressage

Eventing

Training

Citations

1.^ http://www.yrc.co.uk/instructor/christopher-bartle-fbhs

2.^ a b Murphy "Bartle finds right lines" The Independent

3.^ "Training the Sport Horse" Amazon.com [edit] References