Submitted photo - Gina Miles and her horse, McKinlaigh, compete in the 2007 Pan-American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The pair will compete in the 2008 Beijing Olympics in Hong Kong in August.

When she was 10, Creston resident Gina Miles took a trip with her mother to watch eventing at the 1984 Olympics.

That trip spawned a lifelong love of the sport, and it will come full circle starting on Saturday, Aug. 9 when she competes with Team USA in Hong Kong in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

“My mother read the information about this cross country event, so we went,” Miles said. “We had no idea what it was, but when we walked around the course and saw the horses galloping and jumping, I was hooked. I knew that was what I wanted to do and that I wanted to ride in the Olympics.”

Miles and her horse, McKinlaigh, have been training in England in preparation for the games. McKinlaigh will be shipped to Hong Kong today, and Miles will leave on Thursday, July 31. The horses will be inspected on Friday, Aug. 8 while the Olympic opening ceremonies are taking place in Beijing, and competition will begin the next day.

Eventing comprises three different disciplines, each on a different day — dressage, cross country and show jumping.

The local riding school in Davis, where Miles lived at the time, would also attend local horse trials, allowing her to go and watch some of her friends compete. Then, when she got her second horse four years later, she was able to start some local eventing, meaning she’s been working on the sport for the past 20 years.

Nine of those years have been with McKinlaigh.

“Thom Schultz and Laura Coates, who own him, bought him as a 4-year-old in Ireland,” Miles said. “He stayed in Ireland for a year for more training and competing until one day when I was telling Thom and Laura about my dreams to compete in the Olympics, and they decided to bring him home for me to ride. That was when the dream of the Olympics started to look like a possibility as I finally had a horse of the quality to compete at that level.”

With McKinlaigh, Miles rose up the ranks in the eventing world, including winning the Western Debroke Championships in Jackson Hole, Wyo. in 2000, competing with the United States Equestrian Team at the World Equestrian Games in Jerez, Spain in 2002 and winning the bronze medal at the CIC-W World Cup Final in Pau, France in 2003.

In 2004, the pair were selected for the U.S. Olympic team for the Athens Olympics, but ended up being left off the team when McKinlaigh developed a breathing problem that needed surgery.

“We were close to going to the Olympics in 2004, so to have another shot this year is a blessing,” Miles said. “For me personally, it is the ultimate reward for the years of training and all of the ups and downs that have occurred along the way. I could not have made it this far without the support of all of the people around me, especially my family and Thom and Laura, who have kept the dream alive.”

After McKinlaigh’s surgery, the pair went on to take first at the USEF Fall Championships at Fair Hill International in 2006, winning the Gladstone Trophy and Leading Lady Rider awards, before going with Team USA to the Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2007, where the team won the gold medal and Miles and McKinlaugh won the individual bronze.

Miles said preparing for Olympic competition is a lifelong pursuit and that, at 34, she is the youngest on the team.

“The skills required to ride at that level require years to perfect,” she said. “That experience is gained by riding many different horses as each one is a unique individual with its won quirks and traits. You learn to develop a partnership with each one as knowing how that horse will react in any given situation is critical to perform at your best on any given day. Because we cannot communicate with the horses with language, we have to learn to understand them in different ways and that takes time, so establishing a solid partnership with a particular horse can take a year or more.”