Stuart Tinney and Jeepster on course at Sydney 2000
This will send tingles down the spine of those of you who were present on this fabulous day of cross country at Sydney 2000. The roar of the crowd as riders, especially the home side, came down that hill to the water was amazing!
Australia of course won the team gold medal and Britain the silver thanks in part to the performances of two riders featured in this video, Stuart Tinney and Pippa Funnell. As well as winning team gold Stuart and his thoroughbred Jeepster achieved the best overall score in the team competition which, under previous Olympic Games rules, would have made them the Individual gold medallist
In our book An Eventful Life - Life Stories of Eventing Champions Stuart says "Everything ran pretty smoothly up to the Games, which is so important, and during the actual competition I just tried to stay focused on what needed to be done. Of course, after we won and got the medals the sound of the cheering was deafening - that's when you realise how great it is to win in your own home country. In the next few days I had such a mixed feeling of relief, exhaustion and happiness as I started to wind down down after a time of so much intense focus and determination"
Sadly Supreme Rock and Jeepster are no longer with us – Supreme Rock died in 2013 after enjoying some years of retirement hunting with his owner Emma Pitt (interviewed at the beginning of this video) and Jeepster, the horse that could bow, lie down and do the Spanish walk, died at home at Tinney Eventing, only a few kilometres away from the Sydney 2000 venue in April of the same year
These two great riders are still going strong however and may well make an appearance in Rio this year! Sit back and enjoy some brilliant riding and spine tingling memories in this new remix of old video from the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games thanks to HarveyWetDog
