My Little Moment of Fame, a Radio Interview!!!

At midnight on Wednesday this week, I had one of the most exciting moments of my career. I was asked to do a radio interview for a radio station in Victoria called Casey Radio 97.7FM. I swear that name has nothing to do with me at all, it's just the name of the town. On Thursday mornings there is an Equine Show with Sharon Wyatt, Gary Hartigan and Geoff Ablett, which I think is very cool - I wish BBC Radio 1 had an Equine Show!
They came across my blog from a friend of my mums', who told them about me and what I was doing when they had a conversation about young riders and pony dressage. After reading my blog, they emailed me asking to do an interview on air. Of course, I absolutely freaked out.
It wasn't anywhere near as bad as I imagined though, it was all very relaxed and they just asked me questions about why I moved to England, what I did in Australia, what I'm doing now, etc etc. There was just one question towards the end which I knew would come up, and it was the question of why I now compete for Britain and not for Australia. Well, I was truthful and said it was the lack of support and interest in young riders, giving a few examples like when I was invited to a closed clinic with Christoph Hess to watch, and I was asked by an official/selector who I was and was I allowed to be there. Umm, I had been on squads for at least 3 years at that stage, and competing on the dressage circuit for 5 years... I would have thought an official who was involved in what I did would have known what I looked like. Plus I was riding the next day at that clinic in front of an audience who had bought tickets. And then there is the fact that I got taken off the Youth Development Squad when I left Australia to ride in England. I'm sorry, but I thought moving away from home to pursue your sport to a higher level would be considered as "Youth Development".... or maybe not.
I heard back afterwards from some people that listened that I was very diplomatic about answering it yet put my point across and hopefully people will take notice and start to care about the young riders coming through the levels more.
So after forty-five minutes of rocking back and forth, squeezing my teddy on my bed in Germany answering questions on the phone, the interview was over and I just thought "wow".... I don't know how many people get to do a radio interview in their lives!! I was also told off by fellow Australians for having a British accent - oops!! I can't help but have one, though I still have enough of an Aussie twang for English people to notice, and I still say words the Australian way like "vItamins", and "yOghurt", which I always get teased about, but I'll never change it :)