Edwina Alexander Article from Issue 3 of Equestrian Life Magazine
Edwina Alexander Article from Issue 3 of Equestrian Life Magazine
Edwina Alexander Article from Issue 3 of Equestrian Life Magazine
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Photos: carol Sachs/gucci<br />
in Europe for six months to get a taste<br />
<strong>of</strong> what she saw as ‘the place to be’ if you<br />
were serious about showjumping. “I was<br />
24 and really struggled with being away<br />
<strong>from</strong> home where I was used to a great<br />
support network. But I needed to know<br />
that I was good enough to make it on the<br />
world showjumping scene and not just at<br />
home in Australia. I am a very competitive<br />
person and as those first few months went<br />
by, I realised that if I wanted to be the best<br />
rider I had to be in Europe, but it wasn’t<br />
an easy choice.”<br />
<strong>Edwina</strong> has now been based in the<br />
Netherlands for 13 years but continues<br />
to miss her home country and all that<br />
it has to <strong>of</strong>fer. “I miss everything about<br />
Australia and just wish I could move it<br />
closer! It is the best place to live in the<br />
world and because I have travelled almost<br />
everywhere I really feel I can say that. I try<br />
to come ‘home’ every 18 months, but it<br />
is not easy because the European season<br />
never really ends and there is so much<br />
pressure to keep competing all the time<br />
so you can stay at the top. I compete 50<br />
weekends a year which doesn’t leave a lot<br />
<strong>of</strong> time for anything else.”<br />
Despite enjoying her fair share <strong>of</strong><br />
success in her early years in Europe,<br />
<strong>Edwina</strong> feels her career didn’t really take<br />
<strong>of</strong>f until 2006. In that year, she qualified<br />
for the final at the World <strong>Equestrian</strong><br />
Games (WEG) in Aachen and put her<br />
name into the history books as the first<br />
female to do so. She went on to finish<br />
fourth riding Isovlas Pialotta. “Pialotta<br />
was a real favorite <strong>of</strong> mine. Not only<br />
because she took me to the top <strong>of</strong> the<br />
sport but she was probably the fastest<br />
horse I have ever ridden. It is thanks to<br />
her that I have gone on to have success<br />
with some <strong>of</strong> my other favorites, like Itot<br />
du Chateau and Cevo Socrates. Socrates,<br />
as his name suggests, is definitely the<br />
cleverest horse I have ever had and if he<br />
had a little more blood I think he would<br />
be one <strong>of</strong> the best horses in the world.<br />
I have been riding him for eight years<br />
now and he has played a huge part in my<br />
career, including being the horse I was<br />
“I miss everything about Australia and just wish<br />
I could move it closer! It is the best place to live<br />
in the world and because I have travelled almost<br />
everywhere I really feel I can say that.”<br />
www.equestrianlife.com.au 23
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