In the Eyes of Rodrigo Pessoa

By Erin Gilmore | Sidelines Magazine, June 2010

If Rodrigo Pessoa’s eyes are a reflection of his actions, it is no wonder he looks so tired. They constantly flick about, landing on a horse as it jumps a fence, glancing toward a person he knows, to the glass of water in front of him, then briefly staring into space before starting the process again. Focus might be difficult to come by as he sits down for an interview, but a man so popular, so busy and so widely admired undeniably has a lot on his mind.

Rodrigo has never questioned his life’s path. Horses are in his genes, and his career essentially began at birth; as soon as he could walk he would follow his father, the legendary Nelson Pessoa, about at horse shows. The Brazilian family resided in Europe and traveled with the international show circuit, allowing Rodrigo to pick up languages like souvenirs (he speaks six.) For a boy who’d been holding the reins of great horses since he was a toddler, a grand prix win at age 16 was, if not extraordinary to the rest of us, innate for him. With his father as a teammate, he competed as the youngest show jumper at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, and won Pan Am gold in 1994. His partnership with the famous Selle Francais stallion Baloubet du Rouet was the stuff of legends; three World Cup Final wins in a row, Olympic gold, and too many individual titles to count.

And all that corners just a fraction of his past. Since Baloubet was retired in 2007, Rodrigo has remained at the top of the FEI World Rider list with one of the strongest grand prix strings in show jumping.

At WEF this year, Rodrigo won or was in the top placings in every big class of the circuit. His string includes some of the best horses in the world; Let’s Fly, Night Train, Champ 163, Palouchin de Ligny, Rufus. With Night Train, the $200,000 CN FEI World Cup Qualifier was his biggest win of the circuit, followed by the $75,000 Fidelity Investments Grand Prix with Champ 163, and eleven speed class wins. On the strength of those rides, he won the 2010 $100,000 FTI Rider Challenge, which tracks the best rider over the WEF circuit’s 11 weeks of grand prix competition.

But when there are so many, recalling wins can get repetitive. And Rodrigo could be thinking of all or none of that as his attention bounces around the VIP tent at WEF. He’s waiting for the course walk to start before he rides his last horse of the day in a 1.40m class. Jimmy Torano just came by to prep him before he judges the George Morris Excellence in Equitation class that evening. The following day he’ll ride in the last big class of the winter season, the $500,000 FTI Consulting Finale Grand Prix (in which he would place fourth with Let’s Fly.)

By his own admission, there is no special effort taken, no change in the program before a big class. Every class, even the biggest ones, are treated with the same amount of preparation and focus. Like nearly every big rider, he stresses simplicity as the most valuable piece of his program.

“It already is very complicated,” he says. “My view is to try to keep it as simple as possible, try to always move forward and not overanalyze. I hear a lot of people who really do a lot of overanalyzing and torture themselves.”

He must do his analyzing outside the ring, because when Rodrigo enters any arena, his opal-shaped eyes stop flickering. His gaze becomes steady, and he rides with an uncanny ability to balance high speed with near-perfect accuracy.

“Anybody that says they don’t get nervous, it’s a lie,” he continues. “A bigger class with attention on it, you’ll be feeling the tension. But even though you really want to be there at the top you can’t let this affect you in any particular way.”

By “you” he means himself and if he ever does fall victim to nerves, he can count on his God-given talent and feel to snap him out of it.

His horses vary from light-boned and small (Let’s Fly) to big, heavier muscled stallion types (Champ). “You have to believe that a top rider will be able to compete and win with all kinds of horses,” he explains. His accent is silky, ambiguously mixing soft European vowels and a South American tone. “You adapt with the horses and try to make a difference; it’s what separates the good from the bad.”

Adaptation, from languages to types of horse, seems to come naturally to him. In recent years Rodrigo has adapted his interests to reach beyond just riding. With his father, he organized the CSI 5* Audi Equestrian Masters in Brussels, Belgium from 2004 to 2008. In 2009 the show was held in Paris with a new sponsor, Gucci, and this year the plan is to hold two shows, in both locations.

The Masters have handily achieved what American show jumping needs so badly: corporate sponsorship. As the industry plays a never-ending game of catch up to its European counterpart, Rodrigo has begun to be more vocal on the subject of improvements that show jumping in the U.S. needs to undertake. It may have something to do with his deepening ties to this country; last year he married blond haired, blue-eyed Connecticut native Alexa Weeks. His first wife is also American, and lives in California with their six-year-old daughter Cecilia.

But back to sport. Rodrigo attests that big corporate sponsorships are the critical link to push any sport in front of the mainstream eye. Television coverage, corporate interaction, professionalism of sport all go hand-in-hand. But “horse shows are kind of a fish tank; everyone is inside themselves, and the sport has been, how do you say, auto financed by the people inside. The system in this country has been like this for many years. You have to give it time to change.”

Rodrigo stands up. Three tractors have almost finished dragging the ring, and it’s time for him to walk his course. Afternoon sun catches strands of grey that have snuck into his closely cut brown hair, and he half-heartedly sweeps a hand in front of his face to catch a yawn. You can almost hear him thinking, just one more horse. For a man whose destiny chose him, a bit of weariness at the end of the day is a small price to pay. In one sitting he’s answered questions on talent, success, horses and the future of sport. Is it tiring to know that at the age of 38, he’s already a legend? Perhaps. Rodrigo Pessoa will undoubtedly impress us again this year, but for a moment, it’s refreshing to see that even the otherworldly riders among us are still human.

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