Watch: Olympic equestrian Maurice Beatson not slowing down after 215th title at 71

Seventy-one-year-old Olympian Maurice Beatson is one of New Zealand's oldest elite athletes and shows no signs of slowing down, after winning his 215th Show Jumping Grand Prix title.

Very few Olympians from Maurice's era are still riding competitively, he's the oldest in the showjumping ring and will vie for more top titles when the season begins again in spring.

"Every win is a good win," he said. "It's a lot of fun, and I've had a few ups and downs.

"Make the most of the good times and you can be successful at it."

He feels fortunate to still be fit and uninjured, and grins, as he remarks that's surprising because he's fallen off many times.

"If you're going to be in this sport, you've got to be prepared to fall off and take it," he laughed. "I would have to say I'm very lucky I haven't hurt myself."

The Dannevirke farmer springs onto his horse with an agility and ease that belies his years. Partner Sally Clark - a fellow Olympian and silver medalist - hops on her horse too and we all stroll out across the paddocks.

We're heading out for a ride around their farm, where the leaves are beginning to turn golden red and the scent of rain lingers in the air.

As the couple canter up the track, it's plain to see they ride with natural grace - an effortless style that many spend years striving for. Beatson and Clark have worked and ridden alongside each other for more than 20 years now, and say they're grateful to not have the aches and pains you'd expect from such a physical life.

"It's a good lifestyle, and riding horses at any age - but especially our age - is incredibly good for your health and your fitness," Clark joked.

"We don't feel any restrictions because of our age. We don't think about age.

"Age doesn't come into it, until we want an excuse not to do something, then we're allowed to use age."

With a twinkle in his eye, Beatson tells me he's not ready for retirement yet, as he has a some more Grand Prix wins left in him.

"Yeah, I've got a few more, probably need the right horse though," he said. "At the moment, we've just got younger ones, but we'll keep working away at it.

"If you train it up and start it off as a young horse, then get it up winning Grand Prix's, it's quite rewarding."

Their love for horses began before they could even walk, both growing up on farms, where riding was a key part of daily life.

"We were brought up doing it as kids," Beatson said. "Motorbikes weren't around back then, so people rode horses, lots of kids rode.

"The family always had horses."

Riding on the farm was never going to be enough for Beatson. With a strong competitive streak, he was just 19, when he first represented New Zealand, heading to Australia in 1973 to compete in the Kiwi eventing team.

Since then, he's ridden all over the world, wearing the silver fern in the USA, Europe, the UK, Australia and at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games.

"I've been a lot of places and seen the world by doing it," Beatson said. "I've met a lot of people."

Taking a team of horses from New Zealand to Korea was a "big mission" in 1988 and the show jumping courses at Seoul were especially tough, because there were hardly any height restrictions in those days, so the fences were huge.

"You needed a brave horse to jump at the Olympics way back then," he said. "Now they do have height restrictions and it's a lot more technical.

"I'm not interested to go to the Olympics nowadays, because you actually need to live overseas. It's very difficult for New Zealand to get a show jumping team to the Olympics, because the other countries have a lot more money, a lot more horsepower and a lot more riders."

Because of the unique nature of the sport, he's often up against teenagers.

"One of the things is try not to let them beat you," he laughs.

That's something he usually succeeds at, with so many Grand Prix wins under his belt. He's also won the Olympic Cup five times, the Norwood Gold Cup four times, the World Cup NZ series five times and the national show jumping championships three times.

"Sometimes, it doesn't sink in straight away, but you know, you've achieved something you've been working towards.. and if it's worth good money, that's always a good feeling." he laughs.

The sense of achievement is a feeling Clark, 66, knows well, after winning an eventing silver medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

"It didn't feel like the Olympics until way after," she said. "It sounds really weird, but there was me and then there was this person that won the Olympic medal.

"I kind of would look at myself and go, 'Oh yeah, got it. You won it... pinch yourself, you did it'.

"It took quite a while before I could really actually feel it."

In 2024, Beatson was inducted into the Equestrian Hall of Fame for his dedication and success within the sport.

"The equestrian sport is a great learning curve," he said. "You never ever know it all, you keep learning all the time and every horse is different, so they do test you."

His advice for others aspiring to follow in his footsteps is simple.

"Work hard and think about the sport - it's very much a thinking game. You've got to be a smart thinker, a quick thinker and look after your horse."

To fund it all, Clark and Beatson run a business called Kiwi Horses - breeding, producing and selling top competitive horses.

"We swap ideas, we share ideas and thoughts," Clark said. "Maurice has strengths with his riding and horsemastership, and I have strengths with mine.

"He doesn't listen a lot to me, but I don't tell him how to jump... you can imagine."

"One of the nicest things is we work together. If you said to me, 'Do I want to be with a horse person, I'd have said no way!', but the thing is how well it works for us.

"We are lucky, we do realise that."

When they're not competing at shows, you can usually find the Olympians at home on their sheep and beef farm in Dannevirke.

"It's quite good on a Monday morning, when you can go and do some farmwork," said Beatson. "It refreshes you."

The couple aren't ready to hang up their riding boots just yet.

"It'll tell us when it's when it wants us to," Clark said. "We sort of talked about it, when Maurice didn't have a Grand Prix horse, that he wouldn't keep riding, but there's no reason not to keep riding."

She jokes that they're not the sort to put their feet up.

"What else would we do, sit in the chair?" Clark laughed. "That's not a good thing to do."

Beatson agrees and when asked about retirement, he pauses and looks serious for a moment, as if the thought of not being able to ride horses every day and compete in show jumping is a daunting one, but will eventually be an unavoidable reality.

"It'll be another year or two, we'll just play it by air," he said. "We're not going to go on forever.

"As soon as it becomes difficult, that's the time to leave."

Until then, he'll still be out there proving age really is just a number.