Lunch with William Front Row: Jaimen Stringer, WFP, Danny Lansdown, Ben Ferguson Back Row: Bianca DalCollo, Josh Welbourn, Kirsty Withers, Matt Paul, Fiona Paul, Edwina Birdseye
$850 seems to be pretty cheap to have William Fox-Pitt's undivided attention but that’s the price that Kirsty Withers and her friends paid to have lunch with the eventing superstar in the 5 Star VIP marquee at the Australian International 3 Day Event.
“I saw it on the Nominate site and early on no one had placed an opening bid, so I started it off and then asked friends who would be happy to contribute per head and how much. We had a much bigger budget than what we ended up paying; we believed it would sell for $2,000 plus, so as far as we were concerned it was a BARGAIN! WFP was great, we spoke more about non-horsey topics, which he seemed relieved about, we learned that he LOVES his chickens and has about 50 around his yard of all different breeds!!” says Kirsty
Bidding for lunch with William was part of a fund raising online auction for the event; Chris Burton also went under the hammer so to speak (not sure what price was paid for Burto) as well as an Australian flag signed by all of the Australian eventing team and many other great items to help bolster the coffers of the event.
Despite not riding at the event William was kept busy meeting, greeting, course walking and demonstrating as an ambassador for HSBC, the major sponsor of the event and the FEI Classics Series. We’ll be bringing you more about insights from his Masterclass soon but here are a few shots of William at work during his trip to Adelaide
Okay, it's easy enough to talk with with a microphone in the Masterclass when you're sitting still ........
........... but William can do it jumping too
He even managed to wrest the microphone from Paul Tapner (no mean feat)
At times he tried to blend into the crowd ................
............... but his fans always found him
Sadly we weren’t able to watch William ride the 4* course around the Parklands in the centre of Adelaide but he made it clear that this is an event he would love to ride at. So come back soon William..... and bring a horse
