AIKEN – Although it’s been nearly 50 years since Michel Vaillancourt became his country’s hero winning Canada’s first equestrian Olympic medal and becoming Quebec’s only medal winner in the 1976 Montreal Olympics with his silver, the events are vivid in Vaillancourt’s mind.
He and his brother-in-law Dacre Stoker, who are now Aiken residents, shared their Olympic memories at a private dinner at The Willcox on July 24.
Vaillancourt relayed the events of that day in 1976 in detail to those gathered.
The competitors had completed their rounds leaving three show jumpers tied for the silver and bronze medals. It would come down to a jump off, and Vaillancourt was first.
Rains had already drenched the course as well as Vaillancourt’s bright red equestrian jacket, which weighed heavy on his slender frame.
As the competitors readied for the jump off, “the sky opened up. There was a torrential downpour. I started to warm up,” he said.
After warming up, Vaillancourt upon his horse Branch County awaited the bell, signaling his start. Instead, he was told there would be a 20-minute delay. It could’ve rattled him, but he waited for the rains to subside and the officials to give the go ahead.
In the jump off, he would pull off his jumps cleanly while another competitor’s horse hit the rails, ensuring Vaillancourt a medal finish.
The next day the newspapers were filled with photos and stories of the native son winning the medal, but at the time Vaillancourt had no idea how big his victory was.
As if winning in a dramatic fashion wasn’t enough, making it to the games was the stuff of Hollywood movie magic – the unlikely horse and rider who overcame the odds.
Vaillancourt had started his equestrian career as a child. His father bought an equestrian center, where a young Vaillancourt trained. When Vaillancourt was 17, his father was killed in a horse-related accident.
In 1975, Michel Vaillancourt made it to the Pan American games in Mexico, winning a bronze medal. He was an alternate but made it into the competition because a team member broke his arm after they’d arrived in Mexico.
The next stop was the Olympics, but there was a problem.
“The pursuit of the Olympics dream had always been in the back of my mind, but I didn’t have a horse that was good enough to do the job,” he said.
His father had purchased a black stallion that had shown promise, but that horse suffered a career-ending injury. He won the bronze on his back-up horse which wasn’t Olympic material.
In November 1975, he saw Branch County and “fell in love,” he said.
Things were stacked against Vaillancourt, however. The horse was young – only 6 years old – and Vaillancourt couldn’t afford to buy him.
“The average horse competing is probably 13 to 14, and it takes a long time to mature, a long time to have a partnership develop with a horse where it mentally can cope with what you want and what you’re asking him to do. Branch County was only 6 years old,” Vaillancourt said.
In March 1976, Vaillancourt and his team worked out a plan to rent the horse, having never ridden him.
The first meeting of the two didn’t go so well.
“We were trotting around, and he stopped. That was our first introduction,” he said.
Vaillancourt and Branch County only had about six weeks to prepare for the Olympic Trials.
Officials didn’t give him much encouragement. By then the horse was 7, and his rider was only 22. To make the Canadian team Vaillancourt would have to place first or second at the trials because the other slots would be appointed, and no one would suggest the unlikely duo for the positions.
Vaillancourt was unfazed and said they’d place in the top two, and they did.
“I was a little naïve, but I believed,” he said.
Four years later, the story was anticlimactic. Canada participated in the boycott of the 1980 Moscow games, and Vaillancourt won a gold at the alternate games in Rotterdam.
He continued his equestrian career. Vaillancourt held the position of chef d’équipe for the Canadian Show Jumping Team from 1994 to 1998, became a major designer of obstacle races in North America. He was inducted into the Quebec Sports Hall of Fame in 1996 and Jump Canada Hall of Fame in 2009.
Vaillancourt’s brother-in-law, Dacre Stoker, also had Olympic dreams. His were born at the Montreal games.
Those games were the first that implemented drug testing of horses, and Stoker’s father administered the tests. He and his sister escorted the horses from the arena to the testing area and back.
“I had played soccer and hockey, and I was half-decent,” he said, knowing he couldn’t play at the Olympic level in those.
But there was one sport that he thought he could do – the modern pentathlon, which consisted of five events – fencing, riding, swimming, shooting and running. At one time, it was a five-day event; now it’s compacted into one. He found a coach who believed in his dream, and his father supported his ambition as well.
Stoker’s weakest sport was swimming, and he had to swallow his pride to start training to improve. At 17, he was placed with the 8-and 9-year-olds, swimming in the outside lanes. His daily routine included 5 a.m. swims until he pulled himself to being the captain of his college swim team and taking the inner lane.
He committed to training on his own with fencing and riding. He ran cross country.
“I had to be my own coach,” he said.
The hard work and dedication paid off. He beat out two other Canadians because they had bad rides. And another Canadian broke his leg as the Olympics approached.
Stoker was on his way, or so he thought.
Only a few weeks before the 1980 games, he and athletes from multiple countries gathered in San Antonio, Texas, to train with one another. However, there were rumblings. President Jimmy Carter announced the U.S. was boycotting the games.
Over the next few days, Stoker watched what they dubbed as “boycott roulette” with athletes vanishing from the camp and heading home as their countries joined in the boycott. At first, Canada said they weren’t planning on joining the boycott giving Canadian athletes hope, but after a no-confidence vote, that plan was changed.
Stoker’s personal Olympic dreams died. He knew he couldn’t commit to training another four years.
He spent the summer of 1980 as a waterfront director in Canada. He’d taken time from college to train, and he headed back to study. He wasn’t finished with the sport, however. He went onto coach Canada’s men’s and women’s pentathletes in other Olympic games, and he coached Lynn Seguin to a 1983 world championship.
He’s also coached Camden Riviere, current world champion real tennis player.
“I became a better coach than an athlete, but I wouldn’t have been a better coach if I hadn’t gone through that process,” said Stoker, who has become a best-selling author expanding the stories of his great-grand uncle Bram Stoker, the author of the classic novel, “Dracula.” Dacre Stoker is an expert on his famed relative and travels the globe presenting information on the famous vampire and its author.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years and is a Georgia Press Association award winner. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here.
