Extract from the article published in Zangersheide magazine N°3
Bronze medal, Rik Hemeryck: don't ever forget him!
Rik Hemeryck (57) came to Zangersheide with just one horse: Navarro Van Het Eelshof, the same horse which allowed him to finish in fifth place two years ago. This championship was an important objective and he wanted to do better than in 2022, and he seemed to be well on the way. Before the first round of the final, he was in fifth place. Thanks to a faultless run, he climbed back up to second place for the fourth and final round. ‘It was clear that Gilles (Thomas) wasn’t going to make any mistakes. A silver medal suited me perfectly, but not a bronze one, I already had four', Hemeryck laughed before the final round. It seemed to be going well, all the fences stayed in place, but when he looked up at the scoreboard, he realised the cruel truth: one point over time! A total of 3.78 penalty points and a return to third place! Nathan Budd finished with a final score of 3.26 points, stealing the silver medal right before Hemeryck’s eyes, which left him with mixed feelings: ‘I only knocked down one fence during the championship, on the first day. But even without that fault, Gilles was still faster. I was hoping that Gilles and Luna would make a fault, but the mare jumps so well and the rider is so good that I had to admit defeat. My goal here was clearly to win. I failed and that annoys me. Regardless of the result, I’m satisfied with Navarro’s performance. I may be 57, but I don’t feel any older than Gilles or Nathan. So I’ll be back,' warned Rik Hemeryck.
Rik Hemeryck still rides six horses a day with ease, getting up at 6am every day to be the first one at the stables,in order to have a first contact with his horses while everything is still calm.
« When I was eighteen, I rode King Edward’s grandparents »
Hemeryck had been at all the major jumping shows for decades, from Aachen to the World Cup. But a few years ago, he thought about retiring because he’d had enough of 1* and 2* competitions. ‘At the age of 50, I had a look back on my career and started to ask myself what was still the point in taking part in CSI2* competitions'. And then, fate made him met Herica and Thierry Ravel ten years ago. They own around ten horses that they have entrusted to Hemeryck, including Navarro and Inoui du Seigneur, who allowed him to return to a higher level. In a previous life, he won with horses such as Nikita de Laubry, Challenge vd Begijnakker Z, Tekila D and Papillon Z. All of these horses made their fame with the likes of Ludo Philippaerts, Pieter Devos, Gregory Wathelet and Jérôme Guery. ‘All these horses left my stable very early on and had their greatest successes with other riders. I had to make a living by selling horses, but doing so impacted my riding career greatly', says Rik Hemeryck, son of a well-known stallioner and breeder of the De Lauzelle stables. Rik was already 14 when he started riding: ‘We had a pony at home, but it was mainly my sisters who rode. I played football. At the time, mares were still live covered and I helped my father. I had good knowledge about mares and stallions, but I didn’t like riding. At the time, stallioners and show jumping were two very separate worlds. I never rode a pony, I really started riding with my father’s horses. I found it fascinating. I took his stallion Feo de Lauzelle (Wendekreis) to competitions. We went as far as Hickstead. With Skippy II (Galoubet A), I took part in the Belgian Championships at Bavikhove. With Gotspe Z, I got the bronze medal at this championship, he was Tekila D's father. Did you know that Feo de Lauzelle is the grandfather of King Eward? Koningin De Lauzelle (I rode her mother : Gloria) was King Edward's mother. In short, I rode King Edward’s grandfather and grandmother. I was eighteen at the time.
« My parents asked me what I wanted for my 18th birthday: a car or a horse? Obviously, I chose the horse and my parents paid €10,000 for it »
But Rik Hemeryck didn’t take over his father’s stud and breeding activities: ‘I do a bit of breeding now and then, but not enough to qualify as a breeder. I bought my father’s facilities, so I had to make monthly payments to the bank. That was over twenty years ago and, at the time, there were no foal auctions allowing breeders to generate a quick income. In those days, foals had to be bred until they became mature horses, which took five years, but banks couldn’t wait that long. So breeding couldn’t generate enough income for the monthly payments. My father retired at 60. I kept Skippy II for a few more years – he was a stallion and competed well, but I stopped preparing stallions. I wanted to become a rider. So I worked for six months for Peter Charles, then two years for Albert Voorn and finally a year for Hans Günter Winkler. It was a diversified and highly instructive apprenticeship. Back home, Michel Haelterman entrusted me with some horses, and when he launched his Laubry stud farm, I started riding for him. I worked there for five years. That was the time of the famous Nikita de Laubry (Skippy II).
