Euro 2012 football addicts could be forgiven for thinking that Miners Frolic is something they did before games at the Donbass Arena in the coal country of Ukraine.

Assuming they are also Olympics fans, by the end of this month they may know better.

Miners Frolic is a 14-year-old dark bay thoroughbred who is set to be part of a formidable-looking British eventing team at London 2012 in Greenwich Park.

Indeed, for my money, his inclusion is one of the stories of the host nation's rather problematical team selection process so far.

As a double bronze-medallist, along with rider Tina Cook, from Beijing – or rather Hong Kong – four years ago, there are some sports in which his selection would have been largely a formality.

But this is equestrianism, a sport in which all competitors are partnerships, and the engine-room of each partnership is a surprisingly delicate half-tonne mammal subject to a daunting array of possible injury risks and health hazards that could – and all too often do - strike at the most inopportune moments.

If Miners Frolic's connections had any residual doubts about this before the Badminton horse trials in April 2011, they would have been altogether expunged by the end of that summer.

Just before Badminton, Cook (pictured below, with Miners Frolic) found what the horse's co-owner, Valda Embiricos, described to me as "an enormous lump on his withers" which forced the pair's withdrawal from what is always one of the season's showcase events.


"It was so swollen she couldn't get a saddle on," Ms Embiricos explained.

"We still don't know what it was."

This turned out to be just the start of the horse's problems.

By June, he was reported to be fighting for his life in Arundel Equine Hospital after coming down with colitis, a painful gut disorder.

In the end he won the battle, drawing on reserves of toughness that may stand him in good stead among the twists and gradients of the Olympic cross-country course.

"He is a tremendous fighter and battler," Ms Embiricos said admiringly.

"It's his courage that got him through."

There is another yet more traumatic reason why the last 12 months has been extraordinarily tough for the 41-year-old Cook.


In February, she lost her father, the former champion National Hunt jockey Josh Gifford, a charismatic and universally respected figure in the world of horse racing.

As trainer, Gifford was responsible for Aldaniti, one of the best-known Grand National winners of all time.

Aldaniti, who won the 1981 race partnered by the redoubtable Bob Champion (pictured above, with Aldaniti), was owned by Ms Embiricos's husband, Nick.

As I now realise looking back, I was sitting in front of the family hearth in Sussex asking Gifford to reminisce about his own days in the saddle in the 1960s almost exactly one week before Cook discovered the lump on the remarkable horse which, when not competing, goes by the name of Henry.

They are not there yet; even at this advanced stage there is still a long list of mishaps that could put them, or any member of the equestrian squad, out of the Games.

But if Miners Frolic – Henry - can leap the Greenwich Meridian and carry Cook to a third, or even a fourth, Olympic medal on July 31, it will be a stunning achievement.

I, for one, will be rooting for them.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2010 World Cup. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed by clicking here.