Matchmaker

British-born Australian resident Sharon Ridgeway has made a name for herself matching horses to riders, not least William Fox-Pitt with 3 Bramham winners. She reveals the secret behind her success to PIPPA ROOME.

If you were describing Sharon Ridgeway to an unhorsey friend you might call her an intercontinental matchmaker. But Sharon's website doesn't show graphics of hearts and people kissing. Instead it's covered in photos of event horses. This is because Sharon's job isn't too match people to people for romance, but people to horses to create top eventing combinations.

Based in Melbourne, Australia, British-born Sharon, 45, is an event horse agent. She sells some 20 - 30 horses abroad each year and a similar number within Australia. Her claim to fame is supplying William Fox-Pitt with 3 Bramham winners in the past 4 years.

Such success is the result of hours of painstaking work.

"It's not just glancing about sideways and going: cOh that's quite a nice chestnut horse, maybe you should buy that one,' "she smiles. "Unless I do an enormous amount of homework on a horse, I am simply not comfortable about selling it."

We are chatting at Adelaide horse trials on dressage day. Sharon has British rider Jo Aston horse-shopping with her this week. Sharon is happiest finding horses for Brits because she understands the eventing scene there. Raised in the Orkney Islands off the north of Scotland, she rode as a child in the Orkney branch of the Pony Club.

"It was a bit wild and woolly," she says. "For 6 months of the year it was too dark or snowy to ride. But when I left school I did my AI (British Horse Society Assistant Instructor Qualification) with Chris Bartle at the Yorkshire Riding Centre."

Sharon stayed on there for 4 years, did her Intermediate Instructor qualification and caught the eventing bug. Then romance led her to Melbourne in 1986.

"I met an Australian boy who came to Yorkshire to train and I went back with him. It didn't take me long to work out that he wasn't for me but that his country was. I realised it was a glorious place with Thoroughbreds, which I love."

In 1994 Sharon returned to Britain with a horse called Kilkenny Castle in an attempt to get to the World Equestrian Games.

"He had done seven three - stars here, but Badminton was still a little out of my league. I fell off three fences from home," she says. "I went back to the drawing board with Lucinda Green and we were third at Blenheim that year.

"I came back to Australia, had a few more advanced horses, but I felt that riding wasn't where my talents lay. What I was good at was picking horse. I was producing a couple of horses each year myself to two - star level and selling them, but I realised I could probably sell other peoples horse which was much less heart breaking and much less work."

Sharon has now been working as an agent without eventing at the top level herself for about a decade. She lives on the Mornington Peninsula with two-year-old with daughter Tabitha, while husband Nicholas, who has an internet marketing company, commutes between there and their house in Melbourne.

Sharon has Olivia Bunn's Athens Olympic ride GV Top Of The Line, now 16 years old as her "super-easy " one-star ride.

"He is my reason to go to events, but then I spend most of my time scanning for good horses," she admits.

At the end of 2006 Sharon sold two horses to Polly Jackson - Bournston Highland Charm and Megastar - while among her best 'finds' are Olympic team silver medal - winner All Luck, who went to Shane Rose as a one-star horse, and 2000 Adelaide four-star winner Willowbank Jack (renamed Autumn Star) who was taken on by Eddy Stibbe who rode him around Badminton.

But her favourite client is William Fox-Pitt, for whom she has found 7 horses - four-star campaigner Coastal Ties, the three Bramham winners Mr Dumbledore, Macchiato and Navigator, the advanced stallion All That Jazz V, intermediate Walk The Line and this seasons new addition, a 10-year-old called No Objection, who unfortunately has turned out to be too small. According to William, Sharon warned him the horse was a diminutive 16.3hh but it is the first time one of her choices hasn't been ideal so he will probably have to be sold on.

"Over time Sharon has got an idea of the sort of horses I like," explains William. "You have to have confidence in somebody, trust their judgement and know that their take on horses is the same as yours when they are so far away. I feel that Sharon is looking for a horse who is really going to suit me rather than just looking to make a sale. She wants the horses to work out. Her way of dealing is more long term than some agents. She works for the seller but also or the buyer. She is very, very patient and she is a loyal and straight forward person to deal with."

All of the horses Sharon has sent to William, bar All That Jazz V, who was an unbroken 2-year-old, were bought after William had seen them on video.

"I would love everyone to come and sit on the horses because it takes the pressure away from me, but I know that's sometimes unrealistic," says Sharon, who describes herself as an "amateur travel agent" for those riders who come to Australia to try the horses she finds. "The way I sell to William is an exception because I have spent a lot of time with him and I've studied what he likes."

Selling to William does have it's downsides though, because the typical Australian Thoroughbred is 16.1hh, while 6ft 5in William really needs a horse standing at least 16.3hh.

"Navigator is my favourite example of a good Australian Thoroughbred," says Sharon. "He is beautifully bred for racing by Kettrice; he can move, his is a lovely jumper, he is good in the brain and he is tough. But he is taller than the average and they are not so easy to find. There would be ten Navigator's in an athletic 16.1hh model here at Adelaide today, but much as William would like to ride them they are much too small."

William may be Sharon's perfect client, but he is also a good example of her broader target market. Her mother in the Orkney Islands videos all the British eventing coverage and Sharon studies different riders carefully. Her buzz is matching horses with top competitors.

"Really I would like to use my knowledge and go straight to those good riders and say: I know the type of horses you like and I feel that this particular horse would suit you."

I catch up with Sharon again on Sunday mornings trot up. She knows every horse; she is observant and decisive.

"Look at those feet. I can't sell a horse with feet like that," she says of one entrant.

Actually, I was too busy looking at the horse's lovely face to notice its suspect feet. Clearly Sharon is right though, and it is not enough just to think: "That is quite a nice chestnut horse..."

BREEDING EVENTERS IN AUSTRALIA:

The majority of eventers in Australia are Thoroughbred former racehorses.

"We are lucky here in that they come out of racing sound and sensible," says Sharon Ridgeway. "We have a higher percentage of horses who survive racing than you do in Britain."

Racehorses in Australia enjoy a more relaxed lifestyle, which greatly contributes to this.

Sharon explains: "They live out a lot, so they are more chilled. Also they don't work in strings so we don't have 20 horses all trotting up the hill together sending each other mad. Generally the top trainers work them in pairs."

Sharon named two deceased stallions who have been dominant as eventing sires in Australia. The first is Family Ties, a thoroughbred from American lines whose best know eventing progeny are William Fox-Pitt's former four-star ride Coastal Ties and Matt Ryan's current top horse Bonza Puzzle.

The other top stallion is Brilliant Invader, a thoroughbred racehorse who sired Blyth Tait's 1996 Olympic Champion Reddy Teddy. Wendy Schaeffer was third and fourth at the Adelaide four-star this year on two horses by Brilliant Invader, Koyuna Sun Dancer and Koyuna Sun Shine.

There are part-bred eventers in Australia too, including two members of the silver medal-winning team - Megan Jones' home-bred Irish Sport Horse Kirby Park Irish Jester by Irish Enough, and Sonja Johnson's Ringwood Jaguar by Jensen's Man, who was originally a stock horse.