Catching up with the Master of Eventing, my old boss Andrew Hoy
I’ve been in and out of Germany the last few weeks. I really enjoy staying in Germany, but it’s also good to get away and see other places.
At the end of June, we went to compete in Strzegom CIC in Poland. Although it is a quite far away, there were many riders all over the countries, including English, Germans, Dutch, Italians, Swedish and so on so on…
The best surprise for me was that I caught up with my old boss, Andrew Hoy which I didn’t know that he had brought a couple of his horses to compete from U.K.
First time I’ve ever seen Andrew was at the Sydney Olympics, where I was a kid and watching his xc run as a spectator. That time I had never even imagined that I’d be working for him. And then sometime later when I went to work for Andrew, I had never thought I would be competing in the same international event with him…Here we are, this is something that I personally really feel proud of.
After coming back from Strzegom, I quickly had to fly back to Japan to have the medical check for the team selection of the Asian games. We got checked at the National Training Centre in Tokyo where they have all the advanced stuff to check from head to toe, including your mental condition. Apparently I’m pretty healthy, but my body isn’t quite an athlete... I guess most important thing for our sport is that the horse is fit and athletic, but the rider can be a little slack on that department…maybe!
After spending 5 days in Japan, I flew back to Germany and I luckily got to go and watch CHIO Aachen on the cross country day. It was the most amazing show I’ve ever seen. I reckon it’s a bit like Melbourne Cup in Australia, where all the people, even not so horsey people, make an effort to go and experience the show, or stop working and watch it on TV.
Aachen - what a show!
Now the Japanese eventing team for the Asian Games has been announced and I had to settle in for the first reserve position. It is a bugger for me, but that’s the sport we are in and I would like to congratulate the riders who made it in the team. Also I should be thankful for my family, friends, Dirk, Yoshi and my owner Christine for supporting me to complete the team selection trials, which wasn’t an easy task.
I’ll keep Printemps in work just in case that we get called in for the team, and there is no restrictions which event we need to compete anymore, so I’ll have a couple of cracks at some 2 Star events over here until my time in Europe finishes up and coming back to Australia.
