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Orion has signed an autobiography from British Olympic dressage star Carl Hester.
Susan Lamb and Alan Samson at Orion bought world rights in Hester's Making It Happen, which will be published in hardback next April, in time for the Badminton Horse Trials.
Hester was one of the Olympic gold medal-winning British dressage team at London 2012, riding stallion Uthopia alongside teammates Charlotte Dujardin and Laura Bechtolsheimer. It was the first time in history that British dressage riders had won a medal of any kind at an Olympic Games.
Lamb said: “With public interest in dressage greater than ever before, and British success at an all-time high, a book by Carl Hester is very timely.”
Making It Happen will follow Hester from his childhood on the tiny Channel Island of Sark, to his first job working with adults with learning and physical disabilities at the Fortune Centre in Hampshire, his time as a successful event rider, and the pivotal moment in 1989 when horse owner Wilfried Bechtolsheimer approached him to join his yard. Within a year Hester was on the 1990 World Equestrian Games team, and in Barcelona in 1992 he became the youngest British rider ever to compete in an Olympic Games.
Hester said: “I never dreamed my life would be worth an autobiography but looking back through all the ups and downs, the stories, the people and the horses makes me realise how much has happened along the way. I’m thrilled to be able to do this book and I hope everyone gets as much enjoyment reading it as much as I’ve had working on it.”
Lamb has published several equestrian memoirs at Orion, including those of A P McCoy and Ruby Walsh.
Photo credit: Liz Gregg