Horsezone Reviews - An Eventful Life

Georgia Fasher recently read Alison Duthie's 'An Eventful Life' and enjoyed the read, giving it a three white socks and a coronet band on the Horsezone Four White Sock Scale.

'An Eventful Life' covers the paths taken by five of our Australian based world class performers and one up and coming eventer.

Duthie really captures the highs and lows of the long road to victory at Olympic and World Cup level. Megan Jones, Sonja Johnson, Shane Rose, Wendy Schaeffer and Stuart Tinney share their adventures in what proves to be the hard working path of an elite athlete. Duthie also tracks the adventures of an emerging rider, Emma Scott.

It is interesting reading about the commitment of these elite riders to their four legged friends and family. Days are long and arduous at times and it is this hard work which makes victory even sweeter.

Each one of them shares childhood memories, from first ponies to Olympic/World Cup stars, their most treasured moments and the times they’d rather forget.  Each rider describes the difficulties encountered when Equine Influenza shut down all equine activity, how they survived and kept thriving after this.

Get ready to read some personal stories of tributes, triumphs and disasters overcome. I highly recommend this book.  As a horse person you can really relate to the effort and work gone into making what they have and getting to where these riders are now. There are also 96 pages of full colour photos for those that like a quick flick.

Duthie has had and still does an interesting path of work. UK born and bred she evented at two star level and groomed for elite riders like Ian Stark and William Fox-Pitt. Her knowledge of horses and journalism is vast - currently Duthie is the editor of The Eventer magazine and she also co-authored the book 'The Grooms Handbook' with Emma D’Arcy. Alison is the loving wife of Peter Gills and mother to two young sons Peter and Thomas, I do hope there will be more books to read from Alison in the future.

An Eventful Life is available now on-line at www.phbooks.com.au for $34.95 plus postage and handling. Further information is available on the book's website www.an-eventful-life.com.au.