I have been riding horses since I could walk, starting from pony club on the lead and going through to the National Pony Club championships.
After I finished my HSC I was sent up to train as a working student for Heath and Rozzie Ryan at Lochinvar. Around the same time I was very lucky to meet Phil and Mary Hockney of Harden who helped me immensely by purchasing Billy Bathgate to train on as a schoolmaster – but Billy turned out to be so much more than that.
After two years at Heath’s I took Billy from competing Pre-novice to winning the CCI4* at the Adelaide International horse trials. This put us in hot contention for competing at Sydney 2000 Olympics. Unfortunately our dream run came to an end. Billy sustained an injury, and despite our best efforts, we weren’t able to recover in time.
There are many ups and downs in this sport and you just have to learn to deal with that. It is a sport in which I am constantly learning and I love that. After many attempts to find and train another "Billy" over the years, I have now finally made it back on the Elite Squad with Julia Mclean and John Glenn's talented little Thoroughbred, Algebra. This year we will be campaigning and training hard to hopefully make it all the way to the London Olympics!
I am now based back in my home-town of Harden where I run an Equestrian Centre. I teach riders of all ages and get a great deal of pleasure seeing them take their steps towards being safe, confident riders. It’s going to be a busy year all round and I look forward to you sharing the year with me.
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