Australian champ becomes U.S. Olympic star

Not that he'd ever want to, but Phillip Dutton can't easily hide his heritage.

Despite 17 years in Chester County, his Australian accent remains as thick and creamy as a freshly tapped Foster's. His patience, his reticence and his way around a horse betray his roots on an arid farm in the Australian Outback, 45 miles from the nearest town.

But next week in Hong Kong, the 44-year-old, who won a pair of gold medals for Australia at three previous Olympics, will be wearing red, white and blue as the star of the U.S. Olympic equestrian team.

With his family and his scenic West Marlborough Township riding farm growing rapidly, Dutton decided last year that it was time he got his American citizenship.

"It's something I thought about long and hard," he said earlier this summer while leading a horse away from a galloping track at his 80-acre farm just a few miles south of the New Bolton Center (the equine surgical center affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania where Barbaro was treated for his injury).

"There are always going to be people you disappoint by doing it. My parents were my main concern. I didn't want them thinking, 'Oh my God, our son is a traitor.' "

Peter and Mary Dutton own and still work a remote sheep-and-wheat farm an hour's drive outside of Nyngan, New South Wales. They'd seen their third son win the gold for the green-and-gold at Atlanta and Athens, so the fact that he wanted to try and get one for America didn't upset them at all.

"They were great about it," said Dutton. "They realize I have family here in America. America is my future, and it's been so good to me. I've helped out Australia. Now it's time to push America's chances for a gold medal."

Dutton and Connaught, a 15-year-old Irish thoroughbred gelding, will be one of five U.S. teams competing in Hong Kong, where the equestrian portion of the Beijing Games will take place.

This May, after finishing second five times on five different horses in the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event, Dutton finally won America's premier equestrian competition, aboard Connaught.

Connaught, a horse he said tries as hard as any he's ever ridden, trains and is stabled on Dutton's picturesque property, True Prospect Farm. There, in the weeks leading up to the Games, the horse's training regimen was more strenuous than his rider's.

While Dutton prepared his body as best he could for the anticipated heat and humidity at Hong Kong, preparing the horse's temperament was more important.

"A big part of the athletic partnership is the horse. The horse is probably the real athlete," Dutton said. "I'm a rider, but I'm also the trainer of the horse so I have to get the horse prepared for its job. We work on everything: their dressage work, their jumping, their fitness work. But you've got to win his trust and confidence.

"You have to understand that horses, being so big and strong, you really can't force the issue," he said. "If they wanted to, they could just say, 'I'm not doing that.' So you have to try and present it in a way that they enjoy it and want to do it. The key is finding the really capable ones, the one God's given a gift. You try to get them to the highest level. Once there, you have to savor that and preserve it for as long as you can."

Preservation was one of the reasons Dutton emigrated to Chester County's horse country and established his business there. His farm and the land surrounding it are part of the Brandywine Conservancy's protected acreage. Roy and Gretchen Jackson, Barbaro's former owners, are just down the road. George Strawbridge has an estate next door. Big equestrian events - Radnor, Fair Hill - are located nearby.

"Because of the hills and the great footing, a lot of early horsemen were attracted to the area," he said.

It was here that he and one horse, True Blue Girdwood, came after departing Australia in 1991. He went to work for Unionville's Bruce Davidson, a trainer-rider who was a member of several U.S. Olympic teams and will be a replacement in China.

"There are so many good horses and trainers here," he said. "Bruce Davidson and Michael Matz were here. Jonathan Shepherd. The access to veterinarians and horseshoers and the care of the horses is probably as good as anywhere in the world."

Trainer Michael Dickerson soon heard about the small Australian with the sure hands and calm nature and began shipping his problem horses to him.

Dutton rented space and worked for Tim and Nina Gardner on the farm he now owns. He trained and rode horses for some of the leading owners on the East Coast. A year ago, he bought the handsome property and changed its name to True Prospect Farm in honor of True Blue Girdwood and Sky Prospector, his first two international horses.

Business is booming. He stables 55 horses there. Scores of riders, young and old, take lessons. There's a dressage ring, a galloping track, a cross-country course, a water jump, five stable areas, a work shop and apartments.

But even while living here, meeting and marrying his wife, Evie, and now raising three daughters, LeeLee and twins Mary and Olivia, Dutton continued to compete internationally for his native nation.

When, after helping Australia to the team gold in Athens, he decided it was time to switch his citizenship, he had to petition that country's sports officials.

"The Australian equestrian federation was pretty good about it. They released me," he said. "There were rules and criteria. But they took into account that I had represented Australia three times in the Olympics and at four world championships. It's not as if I just did a little bit and then ran away.

"But this will be the first time I'm wearing the red, white and blue against the guys with their green and gold, so it will be a little bit different. I'm sure there will be some ribbing."

In late July, Dutton and Connaught flew off to England, where they trained for eight days before departing for Hong Kong.

That schedule, Dutton said, was better for the horse than a 22-hour, straight-shot flight.

"These horses are pretty seasoned fliers," he said. "They're looked after so well. They get food and water brought to them. . . . Unless there's rough weather, it's actually a lot smoother for them to fly than it is bouncing up and down on a highway."

Dutton predicted that, like his gold-medal-winning Australian teams, the U.S. team will arrive in Hong Kong as just one of several teams capable of taking home medals. The Australians and Europeans should provide the sternest competition.

"The U.S. has been in a bit of a rebuilding phase," he said. "But I think we'll have a good chance. With the heat and conditions in Hong Kong, it should be an open field."

And maybe, after hearing a different anthem on the podium, Dutton will bring another gold medal back to Chester County. If so, he doesn't expect anything to change.

"I remember coming back from the Atlanta Olympics," he said. "I wasn't very high profile in this country at the time. But I'd won the gold, and someone said this would change my life. Everything will be different.

"I rode back to the barn, and everything was the same."