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There is a hole in my world, and an ache in my heart on learning of the death, at the age of 86, of Margaret McIver. Marg was one of the trailblazers of equestrian sport, and like so many of her era, she competed across the disciplines, in showjumping, eventing and dressage. But it was in dressage that she made her mark, becoming the first Australian to represent her country at an Olympic Games, in Los Angeles in 1984, riding the Australian Thoroughbred, CK, bred by her neighbours – and fellow pioneers of dressage – ‘M’, Margaret and Colin Kelly (hence the CK).<\/p>\n
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Margaret McIver and CK<\/em><\/p>\n After the Games, Marg had a distinguished career as a judge, coach and mentor to many many Australian riders. But I remember her best as a friend, and it was a somewhat odd friendship that began when her late husband, Ken, was hospitalised with cancer in the late 90’s. Roz Neave, herself a cancer survivor, and I visited Ken in hospital, and the friendship began, an odd friendship since Ken was very much of the Western District establishment, while I was fresh from radical politics and the haze of the counter culture. Still the four of us had many a pleasant hour, lubricated by good Hunter red, in the Rum Corps, the nearest accommodation to the Sydney CDI at the time.<\/p>\n Marg McIver was one of those people who makes your day feel better just meeting her. For a very small woman, she had a huge presence: a warmth, a grace, and a shrewd intelligence – she also had an exceptional eye for what was, and was not, correct dressage.<\/p>\n Sad then, but the sadness is mitigated in some small part by the statement posted by her family that, ‘she passed quickly, peacefully and surrounded by love’.<\/p>\n I trust that when the dark days of covid retreat, she will be suitably memorialised, but in the meantime, she lives in so many hearts.<\/p>\n – CH<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The world has lost an exceptional woman, Margaret McIver, with sadness in our heart, we celebrate her life…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[1243],"class_list":["post-55146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","tag-dressage"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55146"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55152,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55146\/revisions\/55152"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}