South Australian – Scott Keach creates history with Rio selection!

Show jumpers Edwina Tops-Alexander and South Australian Scott Keach, along with their respective horses Caretina De Joter and Fedor, have earned early selection on the Rio 2016 Olympic Team with their outstanding performances.

For 51-year-old South Australian Scott Keach, RIO is his second Olympics and remarkably 28 years since his Olympic debut in the Eventing Team at the Seoul Games in 1988.

Scott has surpassed the Australian record for the longest time between competing at the Games.

Scott and Fedor have won a high level 4 star event and he knows he has a horse that is well suited to the Olympic challenges.

Fedor was purchased in Europe three years ago as a fairly inexperienced horse and Scott has produced him up to Grand Prix level. Things started falling in to place two years ago and that is when the Rio Olympics became a real focus to Scott.

“The horse has the ability to jump any jump, and jumps at the Olympic Games are big and they jump several days in a row over big jumps, so a horse with scope that can jump these jumps without too much difficulty hopefully has an advantage as the Games go on. Fedor also has a great mind in the ring and lifts to big occasions.”

Keach took a big break from the sport in the early 90s and after moving to Florida seven years ago he started riding seriously again. He had always wanted to try show jumping again after loving it so much when he was younger.

Scott’s journey to get to a second Olympic Team has been relatively unknown compared with Tops-Alexander, who has 200,000 followers on social media and has won some of the most prestigious events in the world.