József Platthy

József Platthy started riding when he was only six years old. He graduated from the Ludovika Military Academy in 1922 and was assigned to the 3/11 Hussar Division. In 1925 he completed the riding course for cavalry officers, and between 1927-29 he was a student of the Riding and Driving Teacher Training School in Budapest, then a member of the Olympic show jumping team of the cavalry school in Örkénytábor. In 1931 Platthy was a member of the Hungarian team that won the Nations Prize in Salzburg. Between 1934 and 1941 he won eight Hungarian titles in show jumping.

At the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Platthy finished third in show jumping with Sellő, who was owned by Gyula Gömbös, the Hungarian prime minister at that time. Platthy was awarded the highest equestrian award in Hungary, the Count István Széchényi Memorial Medal.

During World War II, Platthy served on the Russian front for a year, then in Budapest as the commander of the 1st independent Hussar regiment. He was taken prisoner-of-war in Austria in 1945 and did not return home until the autumn of 1946. He retired from the military in 1948, but continued as a horseman, working in the National Riding School, in Alag, Bőszénfa in Somogy County and Kisbér.