Winks Armstrong (above), is an eventers mum. She is a wife to Cam, a mother to daughters Emma and Annabel (Bols) and helps out at events whenever she can – more often than not in her role as dressage judge.
Of course Emma and Bols are now all grown up. Emma is married to Gordon Bishop while Bols and Hamish Cargill are about to set up their own place in the Southern Highlands of NSW. But Winks’ enthusiasm for horses and eventing is still as strong as ever.
Winks rode ponies from an early age
We caught up with Winks recently and discovered a lot of interesting things about her including the fact that she is actually called Elizabeth but acquired the nick-name Winks as a child and it stuck!
Click on the audio link below to hear the interview
Winks was also good enough to send us some photos from ‘days gone by’. “Some of these old photos haven’t seen the light of day for 30 years or more," she said. "People didn’t take photos like they do today and if you had one it was more than likely to be pretty bad!”
Not sure if this was Winks steeplechasing or point to point - but it's impressive!
“I was lucky to spend a year in Ireland after the Olympics at Munich where my job was looking after Smokey who was reserve on the Irish event team. The local hunt was the Scarteen ‘Black and Tans’ and the hunting country consisted mainly of banks and ditches which the horses became very good at negotiating”
The photo (above) is of Winks going down to the start of the Scarteen Bank Race. “It doesn’t really show how scared I was. Scarteen is famous for its massive ditches either side of the large middle bank; the horse jumps the ditch scrambles to the top then does a little skid down before jumping out over the off side ditch. No one wanted to fall in because the only way out is by tractor and there is usually a good deal of water in the ditch as well!”
Winks uses the one handed method over a fence
Eventing at Havilah back in the early 1990's
