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Peter Charles has no time for parties as he has already set sights on the next goal for son Harry following his Olympic gold in last week’s team jumping final.
Charles snr bagged his own gold medal in London back in 2012 when taking the team prize alongside Nick Skelton, Ben Maher and Scott Brash – with the latter two riders making up Friday’s winning squad which now features three competitors rather than four.
They are are the first father-and-son duo since rowers Dickie and Charles Burnell in 1948 and 1908 to win an Olympic title and while there is plenty to salute, celebrations are low down in Charles snr’s priorities.
He said: “I’m very proud.
“I couldn’t care less about parties, I’ll leave that to these guys. I’m thinking world championships in two years, finding more horses, we’ve got to qualify for LA – there’s a lot to do and the work starts right now.
“I won’t be sat on my backside, this is done and finished for me, I’m down the road and hitting it running.”
It appeared as though Charles’ Paris participation was in doubt at one point as he suffered a fall at the start of July and while he was still sporting strapping on the arm that he broke, his father never had any doubt that he would make the Games, although he was less certain about the team’s medal chances.
Charles snr said: “The week has been good, I don’t get too excited, you just take the rough with the smooth. The road has been bumpy, really bumpy the past month, but we have good training techniques with the horse, who was in good shape anyway when he (Harry) fell off and broke the arm.
“I wasn’t too worried, there were other people far more worried than me – Harry was fine, I knew he’d be fine.
“Did I expect a medal from these guys? Yes, gold was a bonus but bronze, I thought we’d squeak it.
“We said the night before that the lads would have to ride at 100 per cent of their talent and ability, the horses all had to give close to their maximum and that’s exactly what happened in the ring.
“No rider made a mistake, a time fault here or there but no fences fell and it was going to be close to getting a medal. A gold was just the way the cookie crumbled.”
Charles did not get the chance to jump for an individual medal after his horse, Romeo 88, suffered a “slight overreach”, but the rider had plenty to smile about nevertheless.
He said: “It’s not a disappointing end, he’s in great shape but if he wasn’t 110 per cent, I wasn’t going to go. We go home happy and with a gold medal.
“We did what we came here to do with the team, obviously I would have liked to jump, but hopefully we will get another couple of goes at it.
“It’s been an incredible week – the experience of a lifetime. To win a gold medal is every sportsperson’s dream and to do it in the manner we did, as the only team to have three clear rounds, was really special.”
Charles made his Olympic debut in Tokyo when he retired from the individual competition, in which Maher won gold, and then finished 10th in the team competition – events he feels have shaped his career.
He added: “I definitely wouldn’t have been here and able to win a medal without the experience of Tokyo. That for me was a big learning curve.
“We wouldn’t have delivered here without that, so I’m very grateful even though at the time it wasn’t exactly how I saw it going.
“It got tough in Tokyo, we didn’t have the round we wanted and then we had to go back in for the team and I had to dig deep.
“To be honest I walked the course and really didn’t want to ride, but my dad said ‘you have to do this, this is going to make you’.”
