The officials' club chair

Andy Griffiths, chair of the International Eventing Officials Club and a technical delegate for over 30 years, on being smuggled into Belarus and what riders should do before their first event

- As told to Pippa Roome

I didn't really compete growing up, but we were a big hunting family - my father was a surgeon and relaxed by hunting with the Heythrop. I started work in Lloyds, did a few years in Qatar, came back and decided I wanted to ride around Badminton.

I met up with Henrietta Knight and she, Lars Sederholm and Yogi Breisner guided me. I'd go for lessons at 5am and then on into the City. I'm totally dyslexic and Lars would say, "Go down the centre line and turn left," and I'd turn right, so he made me put an L and an R on my gloves.

Hullabaloo was my star horse and best friend. Best friends look after people and he did that many times. In those days we riders partied hard and in the early mornings, he was sympathetic to my movements in the saddle. We were 21st at Badminton in 1985 and went to the Europeans at Burghley that year.

After Hullabaloo went wrong, I thought I'd get hurt riding young horses, so I stopped competing. I became a steward for the British Horse Trials Association (the forerunner of British Eventing) and then did the courses to become an FEI technical delegate.