Motherhood beckons for Olympic hope

One of Australia's top Olympic medal hopes is preparing to become a mum just a few months before the Beijing Games begin in August.
But rushing to get back into tip-top shape for the biggest event of her sporting life won't be a worry for champion horse Headley Britannia after her two foals are born.
Two surrogate mares will give birth to her foals in the comfort of an exclusive stud farm in England while the eventer, affectionately known as Brit by her owners, is kept busy putting the finishing touches to her Olympic preparations.
Brit's owner, champion Australian rider Lucinda Fredericks, decided to breed the 15-year-old mare using a revolutionary IVF program for horses after her enormous success at top flight competitions.
She rode Brit in rare back-to-back victories in two of Britain's most prestigious events, the 2006 Burghley horse trials and then Badminton last May.
With Brit in top form and the Olympics fast approaching, Lucinda decided there was not enough time for the mare to fall pregnant and be ready for the Games.
So owner and mare turned to IVF and began a massive search for a suitable sire and pair of surrogate mums.
Brit ended up snaring a tall, dark and handsome French stallion to father her foals, but the process was hardly romantic.
She never got to rub noses or share a bale of hay with her stallion, the champion show jumper Jaguar Mail.
Instead, the stallion's sperm was sent from his home in France to equestrian IVF experts at the Twemlows Hall Stud in Shropshire, where Brit was inseminated.
Brit's eggs were fertilised three months apart before being implanted in the two surrogate mares, Pippa and Bear, which are due to foal in April and June.
Lucinda, who is married to Australia's World Cup winner Clayton Fredericks, said she hopes to top off celebrations of the foals' arrival by riding Brit to glory at the Olympic three-day event in Hong Kong.
"If all goes well, we will have two foals on the floor by the time their mum and dad go to the Olympics," she said.
"It would be nice though if one day their mum and dad do get to meet."
The foals will spend about six months with their surrogate mums before being sold for an estimated $67,000 each.
The Fredericks have both been shortlisted for Australia's equestrian team that will compete at this year's Games.
They plan to leave their farm in Wiltshire, England, in late July to travel to Hong Kong with their horses.
Clayton Fredericks said he believed the Australian three-day event team had a good chance of bringing home a medal, despite expectations of tough competition from Germany, Britain, France and the United States.
"Our team is relatively younger than the others, and I think Australia always has a very good medal chance in our sport because we are simply great horsemen," he said.