For a husband and wife dressage team, one Olympic dream is over and another is starting again.
Hong Kong dressage rider Aram Gregory will not qualify for the Olympics, but wife Jane (nee Bredin) has been selected to represent Great Britain on Lucky Star, a horse Aram competed with at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha.
Jane represented Great Britain during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta but was then absent from international competition for many years because she did not have the horses to compete. But with Lucky Star, she won a competition in May and this month scored a personal best in a grand prix freestyle in Lipica, Slovenia.
'I never set out to be selected,' said Jane, who will compete with teammates Laura Bechtolsheimer and Emma Hindle. 'He is a good horse and just got better and better. It's like a second lease of life with my riding career.'
In what she called a surprise year, Jane began competing with Lucky Star at smaller national shows before moving on to international competitions in Germany. She was 'absolutely astonished' to win the Munich CDI in May.
'It was like winning a gold medal,' she said. 'Winning in Germany is not easy.'
