Olympic claims to fame

Not me personally , but of the young horses I have here/ am caring for, are related to at least 3 of the current Olympic horses.(I suspect there will be more after the Showjumping) :D
Teg :)
 
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Many rubbish tenuious links!!!

My current/last 3 horses are all a distant relative of an olympic 2012 event horse (via Fleetwater Opposition, Kings Composer, Dutch Gold)

My retired horse was owned by a previous owner of a 2012 Olympic horse

I turned down a WP position with WFP

WFP presented me with a pony club certificate many years ago (!!)

I chatted toTina Cook at fence 4 at Sydney Olympics (she was travelling reserve) having ridden one of her advanced horses the previous summer

My vet was one of the team vets

But the best bit was ... I was there for London 2012 :)
 
I got my first dressage rosette on a pony, presented by Richard Meade, triple olympic medalist.
Have met and spoken to Princess Anne.
Was also there in 2012 and seen everyone get their medals, a fab day
 
marydoll said:
I got my first dressage rosette on a pony, presented by Richard Meade, triple olympic medalist.
Have met and spoken to Princess Anne.
Was also there in 2012 and seen everyone get their medals, a fab day
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I met Richard Meade and Royalty in the olden days,
but being there in 2012 takes the biscuit.
Well done for all those who were/are there :D x
 
Want a reeally tenuous Olympic (well he did the opening ceremony) ISH one? :p

My cousin used to jockey a lead rein pony that Paul McCartney bought for his daughter :D LOL
 
I worked for Rebecca Huges at Classic Dressage who sponser Carl for a little while. never met him though :/ Although my friend went and groomed for Carl and Donald when they were preforming with the spanish riding school so guess her links better than mine!!
 
The team were interviewed at the Olympic Park yesterday afternoon and afterwards all walked past me within touching distance, I was clapping and Mary looked at me and smiled x
 
I was working at a party once (doing the lighting), and watched Mary King and WFP strut their stuff on the dance floor!

My hubby was working at an event once and bumped into Rowan Atkinson (well, he was part of the opening ceremony- does that count?).
 
At Burgie one year, me and a few friends bumped into Zara in the lorry park and ended up chatting to her. She then asked us to walk her dogs for her while she got ready for dressage lol!

The same year at Burgie, I found out how much of an ar*e WFP is! He was walking towards a stall when a young girl in a wheelchair went over to him to ask for an autograph. He then had the nerve to 'shoo' her off and say he was too busy :confused: the girl took a good while to get herself over to him in her wheelchair through the mud, and he done that to her? She was gutted! So me and a few friends went over and asked for his autograph, and while we were there, asked him if he had a spare 10 seconds to sign an autograph for the poor disabled girl that he just shoo-ed away. Seemed a bit embarresed then :rolleyes:

Also, not horse related, but Heather Stanning (who won GB's first gold medal!!:D) lives about 5 minutes from me!
 
I used to see the 1988 Olympic silver medal winning 800m runner Peter Elliot regularly when I lived back home.

He used to drink in the same pub my parents drunk in, and they were on chatting terms with him. Nice bloke.
 
pansymouse said:
I'm so old I had lessons off his mother :(

Mrs Bartle was a fantastic horsewoman but rather scary
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I think Mrs Bartle was the dressage judge at a ODE I was in eons ago (how many Bartles are there in the Harrogate area? :confused:).

She gave me a rather nice score of 33 :D. Pity it went downhill at the XC phase... :eek:
 
In my Games Maker role at GRP I've personally accredited Peter Charles, Nick Skelton, Dickie Waygood and Laura B from Team GBR and loads of other team members, coaches, owners and various others :0) and spoken to Toddy after the medal ceremony the other evening :0)

Blimey, it's exciting!!!!

I have another Olympic claim to fame from about a million years ago. My brother and I uses to swim competitively and his best friend (on whom I had THE most enormous crush!!) was picked for the GB team at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964. We were unspeakably proud of him. He's now a very successful swimming coach in Wales.
 
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DragonSlayer said:
Well, I can beat you all...

I have actually STOOD on the grass at Greenwich Park..

Ho yes!

Impressed?? :D
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Love it! :D:D


My only claims are that a friend worked for Karen Dixon, and another for Chris Bartle. I also had a leg up from Chris Bartle once.
Oh and I know someone who had a horse that had evented for Japan. :D
 
MrsElle said:
I used to see the 1988 Olympic silver medal winning 800m runner Peter Elliot regularly when I lived back home.

He used to drink in the same pub my parents drunk in, and they were on chatting terms with him. Nice bloke.
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My OH once beat Peter Elliot in an 800m race. Much nicer person than Coe who was also competing at the same time.
 
Just remembered... my mum won lesson with Carl Hester many years ago.
She had only just got her horse at the time and he was just backed, so she let her friend take her horse instead. She still went to watch though.
Mad woman, and I still can't believe she didn't take her horse :)
 
Princess Anne gave me a prize once at our College Prizegiving. She chatted to us afterwards, lovely lady.

I used to work in Greenwich about 20 years ago... (how tenuous is that then).

My farrier was an official farrier at the Sydney Olympics.

That was all I could come up with!
 
I worked for Chris Bartle at the Yorkshire Riding Centre when the Germans won team and individual gold at the Beijing Olympics. We had a huge party a few weeks later with all the German team coming over. We all got exceptionally drunk which resulted in us all eating Play doh and singing along to Mamma Mia! At the same time Sandra Auffarth (who won team gold and individual bronze in eventing at Greenwich) was also based at YRC so we both lived there.

Previously to working for Chris I worked for the owner of Opposition Buzz. Over the winter he would come back to the yard from Nicola's and I did alot of the fitness work with him to get him ready to return to her for the eventing season (he was at 2*). Opposition Buzz then came for training with Chris when I was at YRC so I got to look after him again. I then very nearly wiped out both Opposition Buzz and Nicola when the 3yo I was breaking suddenly took off bronking and cannoned into them whilst they were having a session with Chris. I was mortified, but did recieve a 'well sat' from Nicola!
 
Have met Mary King, and going to her yard for a week in February :D
Went into the tack shop the other day for treats and happened to look up and spot one of Mary King's old books for 1993, delighted with my find i bought it. When i opened it in the car, she had signed it Mary Thompson, i am delighted :D

Met:
Ruth Edge (not olympic but still...)
Ian Stark (very nice man, loved him commentating with Mike Tucker, good pair)
Caroline Powell (wasn't the friendliest person....)
Nicola Wilson ( i asked her to sign something for me, she got off Inde, asked me to hold her and walk her round while she signed it, very chatting and very very nice :) )
Mark Kyle

Thats it i think
 
Oooh, I forgot my favourite one - when I was about 5 or 6 I saw Ian Stark at an event and asked for his autograph and he said he would if I held his horse!!! It was the most exciting thing ever, even then! :D
 
Ben Ainslie lived down the hill from us as a child, he would often skateboard down the hill behind his mums car or would climb out of the sunroof to ride down on the roof. Not sure how he survived!
 
When I was younger I came 2nd to Zara in a local jumping class - I was scared to stand too close to her in the line up as her bodyguard was stood in front of her glaring at me.

The funniest thing was watching the body guards in full suits lead Zara and her brother up and down in the gymkhana games, it was a really hot day and they were getting yelled at to run faster :D
 
Met Richard Davison when working for someone he trained and was told that you need legs of iron to be a dressage rider. Needless to say I still have flabby thighs...

Worked on Ginny Leng's (as she then was) yard for a month when I was fifteen. Met Leslie Law and Mark Phillips, and hacked Griffin on his return from Stockholm WEG. Rode Welton Houdini in Badminton Park (he was a lowly intermediate then and I don't think they thought he would go on to win Badminton).

All rather fleeting - but still nice to look back on :)
 
Ive met both Cian o Connor and Billy twomey, talked to them about show jumping and when i told cian i had a dream to be a top show jumper (doubt it will happen) he wished me good luck and said to hopes to see me on the top circuit some day ! :)
 
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