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Family Silver for Equestrian O'Connors

CONYERS, Ga., July 24-The O'Connors of Virginia, Karen and David, flawlessly cleared 12 sets of hurdles today for a bit of Olympic history as they apparently became the first husband-wife team ever to win medals in the same competition, winning silver along with two colleagues in equestrian's team three-day event.

With the Centennial Olympics' $80 million information retrieval system balking at simple requests for even yesterday's results, no one dared ask it to tackle the historic husband-wife issue, "but we know they're the first in equestrian," said U.S. team spokesman Marty Baumon. Officials strongly believe they're also the first medal-sharing spouses ever in the Games.

Their achievement should bring cheers around horsey Middleburg and The Plains, where the O'Connors train and board horses on a 400-acre farm they run for wealthy owners. And it pleased the Olympic coach, Capt. Mark Phillips, ex-husband of Britain's Princess Anne, who was hired three years ago to end a 12-year medal drought for Americans in three-day team event.

"They'll go pretty wild when we walk down the streets" of Middleburg, said a beaming David O'Connor, 34, still wearing his medal after the couple shared a victory gallop around the Olympic equestrian ring with teammates Bruce Davidson and Jill Henneberg.

"We're going to have a party for the entire O'Connor Event Team," said Karen, 38, who expects to bring 200 or so horse owners, friends and supporters to The Plains to celebrate once the Games are over.

Both riders looked relieved after hanging on behind the soaring Australian gold medalists and just ahead of a pesky bronze-medal team from New Zealand that was only a mistake or two from the silver.

The O'Connors left New Zealand no room to advance as they opened with back-to-back errorless jump circuits, dislodging no rails from the 15 wooden barriers and easily finishing within the 1-minute 45-second time limit. When the last U.S. rider, four-time Olympian Davidson, knocked down three rails and added a six-second penalty, it was not enough to propel New Zealand to third.

"Bruce's horse is young and we knew he'd be iffy" jumping before a full house of 30,000 people, said David O'Connor. "Karen and I knew we had to be clean to give him a cushion" in case Davidson's 9-year-old Heyday had problems.

Karen went first on Biko, a 12-year-old gelding. She rattled two rails but never dislodged one and gave her husband a high-five as she galloped clear of the ring to the roar of the crowd. His ride was even smoother as 10-year-old Giltedge barely brushed one rail, clearing all others without a touch. Davidson had a rougher time but the silver was secure.

After the Australians finished their commanding, 42-point victory behind Wendy Schaeffer's flawless jump circuit, all three teams trotted their horses to the podium for something all too absent from these overcommercialized, tawdry Centennial Games-a little classy pomp.

The Aussie winners mounted the podium looking more like rugby champions than equestrians, with Gillian Rolton sporting a cast on the arm she broke Tuesday and Wendy Schaeffer limping on a healing broken leg. Karen O'Connor was nursing a thumb she broke playing soccer with the New Zealanders two weeks ago.

But they all looked proper in tidy riding habits as the Infanta Dona Pilar de Borbon, sister of Spain's King Juan Carlos, passed out bouquets. Then with the horses prancing behind, the athletes faced a sky of cloudless blue into which three flags rose, snapping in a hot breeze. As the Australian anthem played, a British journalist scanned the Aussie, New Zealand and U.S. flags and grumbled, "All colonials."

His mood would not have been improved by the fact the French were fourth and the British a distant fifth, nor by the presence of Phillips, the former Royal, alongside his American silver medalists.

Three-day events start with dressage, a ballet-like discipline scored by judges, then go to endurance, where horse and rider take routes through the broad and baking Georgia countryside.

The O'Connors led a superb U.S. showing in dressage but Karen's mount balked at a jump in the cross-country Tuesday while teammate Henneberg crashed and had to retire. With that, the U.S. team dropped far behind the Aussies, out of range of a gold.

But silver's not so bad. "I'm walking on air," said Karen O'Connor, who was named to the team with her husband less than a month ago. David, meantime, could soar only briefly.

He stands second in the individual three-day event competition after the first day of dressage, and has two more days of competition ahead. "Coming here, I really wanted to win the team medal," to end a U.S. drought stretching back to 1984, he said. "Now that's over and I'm starting to think about the individual."