May 9, 2004 6 min read

THE PLAINS, Va. (AP) – For one heart-stopping second, David O’Connor got lost. There he was, on pace to become the first American to win an Olympic equestrian gold medal in 16 years when his horse nearly came to a halt. He had just jumped fence No. 6 in the final round of the show jumping, the climax of the three-day event.

Amazingly, O’Connor had forgotten which fence was No. 7.

His wife, Karen, was stunned into silence. The rest of the crowd was just the opposite, yelling “Right! Right!” to try to get O’Connor back on course as his head swiveled back and forth. He says he never heard them in his flash of panic.

“You’re like ‘Wait. Wait.’ And then ‘Oh! That’s right.’ And then off you go,” O’Connor recalled during a recent interview at the High Acre farm he manages with his wife. “At the time it seems like forever. And when you see it on the tape, it’s over in a heartbeat.”

Just a stride or two away from disaster, O’Connor hung a sharp right, cleared No. 7 and completed the rest of the course to win the individual three-day gold at the Sydney Games.

Then someone gave O’Connor an American flag. He galloped with it around the arena, giving NBC the perfect patriotic television image that it uses even now – four years later – to promote its Olympic coverage.

“I never thought at the time how powerful the image with the flag was,” O’Connor said. “It was the thing to do. Hand me a flag. Being down in Australia, after all that ‘Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oy! Oy! Oy!’ thing, to have an American flag in front of everybody. But it never crosses your mind that it would be an image that would last.”

The victory would have been just as historic – but far less noticed – without the getting-lost quirk and the flag. Now it is one of those rare all-time classic Olympic gems from a sport that often gets pushed to the margins by track and field, swimming and gymnastics.

“History writes itself,” Karen O’Connor said. “And he’s the gold medalist. And he’s known as the guy with the flag on the horse. And he’s also known as the guy who almost went off course. It was like a two-second moment that has become etched in time.”

David’s gold medal has been treated like all the others from their stellar careers, showing the wear of being handled and worn by kids, friends, riding students and more or less anyone else who wants the thrill.

“It’s pretty beat up,” he said. “But behind every scratch and every dent there’s a person. It’s ridiculous to lock them away. It’s a symbol, and to let people be a part of it is an important part of it.”

The upcoming games in Athens could give the O’Connors the chance to get one last Olympic medal. Or two.

“That would complete our coaster set,” Karen said.

Even before Sydney, Karen and David were a nice novelty item for non-equestrian trivia buffs. They were on the U.S. silver medal three-day team in Atlanta in 1996, making them the first husband and wife to share a medal podium at a Summer Games.

The rest of the “coaster set” includes a pair of team bronzes from Sydney and six other medals from various Pan-Am Games and world championships. Athens would be Karen’s fourth Olympics and David’s third.

First, however, they have to make the team, and that’s not a given this time.

Custom Made, the horse David rode to the gold in Sydney, was retired last month in an emotional ceremony after a marvelous nine-year career. Karen won a silver medal at last year’s Pan-Am Games and was recently ranked as high as No. 5 in the world, but she’s now competing on a different horse and is uncertain of her prospects.

“We don’t have the same level of horses we had before,” David said. “I don’t know if we’re going to make it.”

Both are considered on the bubble for the five spots that will make up the U.S. team in the three-day event, which consists of dressage, cross-country and show jumping. David’s chances were buoyed by a win on Outlawed at the Foxhall three-day event in Georgia last month, but Karen’s Upstage faltered at the more prestigious Rolex event in Kentucky a week later.

Their experience and past successes should count in their favor when the team is chosen in July, and David has won even more respect for taking the presidency of equestrian’s national governing body and helping to resolve a dispute over how the sport is run.

The final selections also frequently hinge on the health and well-being of the horses, regardless of how good the riders are. Karen and David missed the Barcelona Games because their horses were injured, so trying to handicap the favorites to make the Olympic team is about as hard as handicapping a Triple Crown race.

“There are other sports where the equipment is influential in the final result,” Karen said. “But none of those sports have equipment that has a brain.”

In fact, husband and wife might end up competing for the same final spot. There’s no rivalry between the two, however, in a sport that is more comparable to the individual pursuit of golf than the one-on-one intensity of, say, tennis. They each will do their best, and if only one goes to Athens, it counts as success for both.

“You go in there to support, no matter what happens,” David said.

If he makes it, David said this would be his final Olympics, and Karen more or less agreed that it would also be hers. He is 42; she is 46 and still would like to start a family.

Their successes haven’t made the O’Connors rich. There are no Nike endorsements. They don’t own the horses they ride or the farm they manage in northern Virginia. When they stop competing, they will be more than content to teach the next generation; some of their students are already among the sport’s elite.

Before then, David wouldn’t mind one more gold – one that is shared with the whole team.

“I never thought about it as I’m going there to defend a gold medal,” David said. “The thing I would like – I would really love to be a part of an Olympic gold medal team.”

And maybe he won’t get lost this time.

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On the Net:

www.oconnoreventteam.com