There are not enough hours in a day for Christopher Lowe to devote to all that goes on in his life. But he’s giving it the old college try.
“I have three big balls I’m constantly juggling,” admitted the 38-year-old rider. “Family, a finance career and show jumping. Ideally I have two good horses I can compete with but you need to keep the pipeline going.”
Lowe – a father of three and a portfolio manager in Vancouver – is keen to have his oldest love, that of the horse, strongly in the mix. A city boy with no connection to horses, he became fascinated with the animal early on.
“For whatever reason, as a little kid I’d ask for a pony every Christmas and had an affinity for horses,” he explained. “Around 12, I took a few riding lessons. A friend of ours had a daughter who rode and I started and really liked it.
“I was 13 or 14 and my parents bought me my first horse. I started at a small equestrian centre in Burnaby, BC. I wanted to get better so we literally looked in the phone book, ‘where can I take this to the next level’ and we found Thunderbird Show Park. I went there in my early teens and from there kept going.”
(christopherlowe.ca)
It was at Thunderbird where he began riding with Tiffany Foster, who would become a close friend. Foster was Lowe’s grad date, a groomswoman in his wedding, and is godmother to his kids.
She is one of many close affiliations in the sport. In fact, he bought Van Tao RCG, a 9-year-old bay gelding, from another very good friend, Kent Farrington. He also rode some with Eric Lamaze early on in his career.
Lowe keeps horses both in Langley, BC, and in Germany with Jan Theymann. His other strong equine contender is 12-year-old Cunningham 4.
“I always try to have a couple of horses in training in Germany,” Lowe explained. “I’m the true weekend warrior. But I have a bit of an advantage; one, I competed at a high level as a younger person and, two, I have a really great support system with Tiffany and good people to help with the horses.”
Lowe is still expanding his horizons when it comes to the sport. He’s on the board of directors for Equestrian Canada, a term which continues for another couple of years.
“I’m on their finance committee and I’m also on their strategic planning committee,” he pointed out. “I think where I can add value to an organization like Equestrian Canada is, on the one hand, I understand the sport and actively compete at a reasonably high level and on the other, I’m a finance professional. I can assess it from a business perspective. I’ve found that quite rewarding.
“I’m happy to be helping to continue the progressive momentum of the organization.”
Despite being pulled in all sorts of directions, Lowe wants to make it clear that competition is still something he plans to focus on in the future.
“I’m so happy we have Eric’s knowledge and skill set as the chef d’équipe,” he said. “Now it’s great for the younger riders, it’s a different landscape for them. We’ll build a more robust platform for Canadian show jumping, a deeper bench. That’s the right approach; we can’t just focus on the top group. We need to continually be a force in the sport and the only way to do it is to have a strong bench of riders.”
After the summer series at Spruce Meadows, Lowe plans to return to Thunderbird in August, back to Calgary for the Meadows’ two-week programming in September, the World Cup in Vancouver and potentially the Canadian championships in November in Toronto. Last year, he won a bronze medal at the latter event.
“I still have goals, probably more realistic goals,” he noted. “But that being said, I have some good horses. I need to develop a little more time … but a realistic goal would be to be used on a Canadian team, possibly show in Europe on a Canadian team.”
Sounds like something we could put our money on.
