My introduction to horses was through a school friend whose father started the Brisbane Polo Club.
My family are not ‘horsey’ and I thought I was in heaven when I was able to spend the weekend grooming and riding the polo ponies. My parents eventually gave in and I was allowed to lease a horse when I was in grade six. I did not have a saddle for the first couple of months so rode bareback on my fat little grey pony called ‘Nutmeg’.
Through school I did a bit of Interschool and Pony Club and tried to compete as much as possible but as we did not own a float I had to convince people to take me with them. Finally we purchased a float when I was in Grade 12 and I thought this was the best thing ever!
After finishing school I spent some time at Tom Doyle’s who is a vet and rider and had the opportunity to ride multiple horses and was able to help out with the vet work.
Whilst there I started to have lessons with Tony Manca and asked him if he knew of a stable I could get some experience at – he mentioned I go to Kevin McNab’s so I gave Kevin a call and off I went. At this stage I had not had any exposure to professional stables or even knew that they existed! This was a whole new world to me and could not believe that people could do ‘horses’ as a job!
I was totally hooked – my only speed bump at this stage was that I had been studying Bachelor of Science for the past two years and had been accepted into Veterinary Science. I had applied for Veterinary Science as through school I had many lame and injured horses and wanted to know how to fix them. I also realised that while being at Kevin’s that I did not have the finances to buy the ‘good’ horses I needed so I had to learn how to breed them. This seemed to be a good fit as I also love science.
While working at Kevin’s I met my husband Shane Davidson. My husband Shane is a World Cup Showjumping Rider and has competed up to Inter I level in dressage after spending 7 years over in Germany riding. Whilst I completed my five years of Veterinary Science I continued to compete and train horses at Shane’s parent’s property Fairbanks Stud. Shane taught me how to break-in and start young horses according to the German system.
We started Davidson Equestrian where our speciality is producing horses from birth to high level competition. In addition to this we are kept busy teaching young riders, training horses, campaigning horses and producing horses for sale.
In the competition off season I am busy being an equine reproduction veterinarian at our stud for our own and outside horses. We live on an 80 acre property and have up to 20 horses in work made up of roughly 50/50 self owned and clients’ horses.
My most notable achievements would be:
- 2012 Qld Equestrian Sports Star of the Year
- 2012 Qld International Eventing Rider of the Year
- 2012 1st Melbourne CCI**
