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everything else he did. He won
£700,000 in prize money.”
There is far more to being
a successful horse than just
jumping over the fences. They
have to be amenable to travel, to
be able to settle in new stables
and, most importantly, they need
to react well to a crowd. “The
best horses rise when they get
into an atmosphere, but some
others, they shrink,” says Geoff.
“You ride into the ring, the
crowd starts clapping – and they
start to disappear up their own
backsides!”
It’s Otto was ever the
showman, “growing” as the
crowd reacted. Thanks to him,
Geoff is only one of a tiny
number of showjumpers who
have two Olympics under their
belt. He was in the British team
again for Sydney 2000, but
stresses how you can never, ever,
take your place in the team for
granted. “The Olympics is the
pinnacle for every sportsman.
When you’re picked as part
of the British team there’s no
guarantee that you’re going
to be one of the four going to
the Olympic Games. I feel very
honoured to have been to two.
Normally if a horse goes to one
Olympics they’re very special – if they go to
two, it’s outrageous. It’s Otto was one of the
best horses in the world.”
After Its Otto retired Geoff had eight years
when he was out of the limelight, but he
doesn’t care to dwell on those wilderness
years. “You’ve got to get on and produce
another. Now I’ve got three or four top class
animals coming through.”
He talks about the team that is a man
and his horse. “It’s two lots of flesh and
blood working together. The horse can’t
tell you he’s got a headache that day, so
you’ve got to be aware. You never stop
learning in this job: every horse is different,
like people. You’ve got to work out how he
ticks, and you can only do that from years of
experience.”
He looks back at Brickfields’ arena. “People
come here to get a problem sorted out. It’s
nice when it all goes well for them, but really
its better if the problem shows itself on
these occasions, so I can help get it right.”
While his knowledge of horses has
86
deepened over the years, he has watched
them change at a fundamental level,
as show jumping has developed as a
sport. “They’ve been bred specifically for
showjumping and been made more delicate.
The old Irish horses, you could gallop him
down the road with three shoes off and one
on and he’d still stay sound, but the modern
day horse is a little bit tender.”
To accommodate today’s more delicate
horse, fence poles, too, are lighter, to fall
at a touch. You might expect someone of
Geoff’s experience to be curmudgeonly
about the changes he’s seen over 20 years,
but he’s far from it: “You’ve got to go
with the times – and it has improved the
competition,” he says, adding: “The good
thing about our job is as a rider is that a lot
of us are still competing over the age of 50
– in other sports they’re over the hill. I won
the Hickstead Derby two years ago when
I was 51 – or was it 52?” With a flash of
his famed bluff humour he says “I’ve got
Alzheimer’s but I can still ride – I just forget
my way round the course!”
In truth the future for Geoff is looking
pretty good. In two Grand Prix in Norway,
the first two shows of the new season he
came second in one and sixth in the other.
After a trip to Portugal he’s hoping to repeat
his success of last year at the Hickstead
Derby, though on a different horse.
“I’m still really achieving. I’ve got some nice
up and coming horses and I’m excited about
it – I’m not ready to hang my boots up yet.”
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