During the Thann Horse Sports Festival in August this year (see www.reitturnier-thann.de for photos of Bottani at the event), Swiss Olympic rider Patricia Bottani was one of the crowd favorites. Now she has returned to the Munich area, in a bittersweet mission, on occasion of the 2006 Munich Indoors International Show. For it was this mega sports event that Patricia had chosen as a fitting venue to retire her Olympic horse Radisson Diamond.

The audience cheered and seemingly did not wish to stop clapping as Bottani and her famous mount entered the ring, looking as good as ever in the midst of the spotlight.

“We had great times together,” Bottani said about Radission Diamond, who was sired by Rebel Z and was born in Holland in 1987. His dam is by Amor. “In 1993,” Bottani went on, filling reporters in on the fascinating history of her horse, “Radission was sold to Barcelona, and after lengthy stays in Spain and then England, he eventually came to my stables. I bought him in 1997, and the previous year, he had been fore-rider horse at the Olympic games in Atlanta with Luis Lucio.”

Her mount’s career had spanned almost the entire globe, Bottani said. “He competed at many big shows in Europe, be it at Geneva, Bremen, Wiesbaden, Paris or Aachen. He was at two Olympic games, in Atlanta (USA), and then as Swiss Team horse with myself in Sydney in 2000. His first international show, incidentally, was in 1994 in Addington.”

With Radission Diamond, Bottani achieved over 50 Grand Prix wins and placings. In the course of his career, the horse has travelled more than 220 000 kilometres by road, and flown some 53 000 kilometres by plane.

„His personality is very friendly,” says Bottani, “and he wants to work. It does not matter to him whether we are working at 30 degrees plus in summer, or at minus 15 in winter, he is always giving 100% and never complained. If he were a human, you’d say his heart is in the right spot.”