A salute to king of equestrian

Farewell, then, Sir Mark Todd. The king of New Zealand equestrian is clip-clopping away from international sport, and his (second, presumably permanent this time) retirement closes the curtain on one of the remarkable sporting stories.

Todd this week announced his competitive career was finished after helping the New Zealand team win the Nations Cup at the Camphire International Horse Trials. Training horses for racing, not guiding them over jumps and across country and gently around dressage pits, now appeals more to the 63-year-old double Olympic champion.

The timing is perhaps surprising. It is less than a year until the start of the Tokyo Olympics, when Todd would have had the opportunity to extend his New Zealand record for appearances at the Games. He will stay at seven, robbed of two further appearances by the 1980 Moscow boycott and the injury to his horse at Atlanta in 1996.

Todd's sport can be an acquired taste - anything with horses tends to be that way - but, in his competitive approach, he is no different from any other sportsman. When, as he described it, he lost the ''fire in the belly'', he knew it was time to take the saddle off.

The impact of an athlete and his or her legacy can generally only be determined years after their career has ended, but in Todd's case, because of the sheer length of his tenure at the elite level and the fact his sport has a relatively shallow pool of superstars, it is easy to place him at the top of our equestrian podium.

He was a pioneer, the first Kiwi in that form of horsework (horseplay?) to become a household name.

He brought eventing into the mainstream. Few knew much about the three-day discipline but plenty watched with skipping hearts as Todd won gold at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984 and made it ''Todd for two and two for Todd'' four years later in Seoul.

Atop horse Charisma, affectionately known as Podge, he formed one of New Zealand sport's great partnerships. You could see the bond they had, the faith in each other, the enjoyment in competing and winning.

Todd's horsemanship was beyond compare - ''you could put this guy on a donkey and he'd still win'', jumps jockey John Francome once said - and his list of achievements is testament to that. As well as the two golds, he won four other medals at the Olympics, four Badminton titles and five Burghley crowns, and was named the FEI rider of the century.

His skill and durability was matched by his resilience in difficult times, notably when he found himself at the centre of a major scandal at the turn of the century when a British newspaper ran pictures of him allegedly snorting cocaine with a gay lover. That ''squalid tabloid set-up'', as Todd called it, and his infamous ''that's a curly one'' response to a question from television host Paul Holmes, could have derailed his career.

It set it back - Todd went into exile for eight years - but it is now a mere footnote to the story of a phenomenal sporting life.

The word ''great'' is now almost beyond cliche in sport. But there is no doubt Sir Mark James Todd is one of the greats.