Longines Hong Kong International Horse Show: French great rules out Olympic quest
Roger-Yves Bost keen to keep competing into his seventh decade but content for new generation to sweep major honours
Longines Grand Prix champion Roger-Yves Bost said the vagaries of equestrian, coupled with his advancing years, were conspiring against his lingering world and Olympic ambitions.
A team gold medallist from the 1990 FEI World Championships and 2016 Olympic Games, Bost pledged to remain on the professional circuit, nonetheless, “because if I stay at home too much my wife isn’t happy”.
The Frenchman, who celebrated his 60th birthday last October, crowned the three-day Longines Hong Kong International Horse Show with victory in the flagship grand prix on Sunday night.
“I still have the motivation and, more importantly, the passion for horses,” Bost said. “This is the only sport that allows you to have a long career, but in it you have bad days, and sometimes don’t have the luck you need.”
As recently as December, Bost was targeting August’s FEI World Championships at his favourite Aachen venue in Germany, only for his horse to inexplicably lose condition.
“With horses it is like that, sometimes everything is OK, others it is difficult and you have nothing,” Bost said. “In the 1996 Olympics, I had a very good [faultless] second round and the day after my horse went lame.