Christine Bates, President of Sydney@SIEC, with REC sponsor Chris Elliott and Event Secretary Rosemary Allen
“We must be mad to run a Mid-Week competition as well as a Weekend competition” said Christine Bates at the presentations for the Randwick Equine Centre Sydney Summer Classic.
As they say, if you want something done, ask a busy person and Christine Bates is certainly one of those. As well as being President of the Sydney @ SIEC Eventing which hosts several competitions and clinics on the Sydney 2000 Olympic site, running her own business at Bates Equestrian with husband Matthew, being a mum and a professional rider, Christine has now decided that it’s also time to compete overseas
Sadly her ride on cross country in the CCI4* at the Australian International 3 Day Event didn’t end as she had hoped; a fall on course scuppered her plans temporarily for a berth on the Australian Rio Gold Squad but luckily her horse Adelaide Hill was not injured. Like all great competitors Christine has re-focused her efforts and, with the support of friends, family and supporters, she is now heading over to the UK in May
“ After Adelaide 4* at the end of last year a few of my clients and pupils got together and said that they wanted to help fund a trip to send Adelaide Hill and I to Badminton. After discussion with selectors we decided that he probably didn’t to do another 4* in preparation for Rio so we’ve decided to do Saumur CCI3* and Luhmuhlen CIC3*as his two big lead up events to Rio”
“It’s exciting but it’s crazy! This is a whole new level of working hard” admits Christine as she tells us about getting everything together for the big trip
Christine BatesThere is a My Cause fund raising page for Christine which you can contribute to here and there is also a Fundraising Evening on March 10th which you can also buy tickets for on the My Cause page
Christine and Adelaide Hill (above) put in a lovely clear 3* showjumping round while the up and coming star Ned O'Reilly (below) had just one rail down to finish second in the 3* on the weekend
