This weekend ten selected young riders in each discipline (Dressage, Show jumping, Eventing, Show horse and Vaulting) met at Werribee Park for a jam-packed weekend of learning, lessons and a lot of laughs!
To be selected as a Young Ambassador finalist in any discipline your first step is to complete an application form which requires information about your top performances and personal achievements and some general questions such as “What does Young Ambassador mean to you?,” “How do you contribute to your sport?,” “How do you see yourself contributing to your sport in the future?” and “Discuss the most important aspect of your sport.” There was also a series of questions dedicated to promotion and sponsorship with an emphasis on social media (so just a heads up guys, use facebook for good, not evil!!!)
As a university literature student and a compulsive text-message re-reader, naturally I wrote, read, edited re read and re-wrote my responses.. and repeated this process numerous times which resulted in a $6.00 express post bag and me still nearly missing the cut-off date despite printing off the forms weeks before they closed! So, although I advise you check what you send in, perhaps don’t go as overboard as I did!
The Eventers (Myself, Charlie King, Alice Grimshaw, Molly Barry, Elysha Walles, Sarah May, Emma Price, Issy Walsh and selectors Katja Weimann, coach Edith Kane and selector Lucy Kolomanski)
Day 1 commenced at 8:30am and finished at 9pm I think it’s fair to say we were exhausted. My day went a little something like this….
5am - wake up, pack, pick up ponies . This includes trudging through a 15 acre paddock in the dark looking for giant horse-form shadows. With 8 horses in the paddock and only 3 heading to Werribee, it took some trial and error to find the right ones and an epic telepathic battle to convince Queenie the black hole she was walking into (aka the float) was not filled with boogie monsters
8:30am – arrive at WPNEC – seriously where did the last 3 and a half hours go? Pick up spunky new outfits we were to be sporting all weekend… I hope we weren’t too stinky for our poor presenters after the torture which was Personal Training!
10am – Dressage lesson - dressage being Queenie’s forte and Werribee being Queenie’s weakness (again, convinced there are a variety of monsters in the bushes around the sand arenas) it was great to spend the time with our super coach Edith Kane and just work through a bunch of transitions and laterals up to 2* level. It was a tough lesson, 50 minutes of intensity, constantly swapping from shoulder-in to travers, collected paces to extended paces, leg yield and simple changes but Queenie really showed that her basics were established as she worked through these movements with ease.
Finalists Charlie King, Katelyn Lawton and myself chatting with coach Edith Kane and selectors Katja Weimann and Lucy Kolomanski.
After our dressage lesson we did a flying dismount, super-speed untack and headed over to our first seminars. Female jockey, show rider and media personnel Casey Bruce took us through the Media session which, as an avid blogger who invests a lot of time trying to provide useful and entertaining information through my facebook page, I really loved. Her media knowledge was incredible and it was unbelievable to know that she thought I was on the right track with promoting myself (as a young rider and new coach) as well as my sport, federation and sponsors.
She also did some terrifying, hysterical yet highly amusing mock interviews where she spun on her heels mid-sentence, pointed a pen in your face and asked you a million questions and then gave us honest feedback! I think I can speak for all of us when I say each of us sat in fear, quietly hoping we weren’t her next victim. However, it was a highly valuable experience and I think we all be better prepared next time we step into the limelight if we can remember her advice
1) Never refuse an interview or respond with yes/no answers
2) Talk to people, ALWAYS be friendly and approachable even if you just had 10 rails or scored minus percent in your dressage test
3) Create opportunities for yourself, don’t wait for them to come to you
Eventing finalists Molly Barry, Emma Price, Sarah May, Alice Grimshaw, Elysha Walles and myself after packing up the show jumps! (I managed orange Werribee sand more than anyone else somehow, I looked like I got down and commando rolled across the arena in our final photoshoot!)
Next it was onto the cross country lesson. I was a little nervous about this because I was only riding a young Prelim/PreNovice horse in a group of 2* horses who ate up the cross country but she was a little legend and kept up with the big kids for the most part. We worked on a variety of technical fences with Edith including ditches, banks and the water complex as well as a mixture of tricky lines and then put it all together in a course where we got to establish our rhythm. Edith really bootcamped our positions and got us riding our fences perfectly. It was a wonderful opportunity to have a schooling session before Friends of Werribee Horse Trials in September with three super eventing ladies (Edith, Katja and Lucy) all there to answer our questions and give us advice and feedback
After this, another quick swap from joddies to jeans for the seminar with the Equine Staff representative Liz Alexander who provided career advice for those of us who want to work with horses in the future and those sane ones of us who want to balance non-horsey work and riding. She presented us with worldwide opportunities to work in the equine industry as grooms, riders, stable managers, coaches and much more. She also highly recommended that those in the Olympic disciplines head overseas to gain experience, exposure and references which will help build the foundation for a successful equine business in Australia. I am studying psychology at university as well as working through my NCAS coaching levels with the aspirations to one day become the ultimate coach with a degree in sports psychology. Hopefully I’ll be able to assist riders achieve their best results both mentally and physically so I found her advice of great use and will be in contact with her in the not too distant future
Myself with other finalists and gorgeous ladies Molly Barry, Issy Walsh and Teegan Ashby on our way from cross country to seminars
After this we headed over to Personal Training with Ryan and Trent from Shaw Thing Fitness. All I can say is OUCH! Two days later and I still feel like I’ve been hit by a bus (or several buses). There were these push up like movements combined with a jumping jack called a “Berpie” and may I suggest if someone ever mentions these to you, you run in the opposite direction as fast as you can. Thanks boys for showing us we all need to get in shape!
Next it was a session with the lovely Mia Glass who was last year’s Dressage Ambassador and a guru of all things public speaking so she gave us the down-low on how to prepare for the debates we were to do that night at the dinner in front of all finalists, selectors, coaches, organisers and parents. I was teamed with fellow eventer Teegan Ashby, valuter extraordinaire Jessika Hill and show horse expert Julia Soldatos and we were the affirmative team for the topic “Zara Phillips made the right decision to pull out of eventing competitions whilst she is pregnant.”
We thought we were extremely lucky to draw our topic in comparison to one poor group who endeavoured to explain why Kevin Rudd would make a good dressage rider and Tony Abbott, a good jumper!! Speaking in front of a big audience was extremely daunting for everyone, including myself and yes there were some nervous mistakes from everyone but all in all it was an opportunity to practice something out of the ordinary and expand our horizons
Prepping for our speeches in Indoor Arena 1
Day two was much shorter (thank goodness because we were all still recovering from Day 1) and saw us meeting with Racing Victoria representative Cara Shelley. Cara emphasised the opportunities for young riders like ourselves to pursue part-time work, full-time work or careers within the racing industry whether it be at as a groom, track rider or at head office to support our ambitions as equestrians. We also discussed many of our successful race-horse turned performance horses (everyone in the room across four disciplines had had a very competitive Thoroughbred at some time!) and she compiled a list of their names to use as a testimony to the athleticism and versatility of the breed outside of racing. She also provided us with the resources to locate and retrain suitable speed demons for our chosen disciplines and shared with us the new campaign Racing Victoria is launching to promote their life after racing through the sponsorship of major events in all disciplines including Melbourne 3 Day Event, the Australian Show jumping Championships, the Dressage Festival and the Royal Melbourne Show
It was then off to a technical and big show jumping lesson where we really pushed Queenie’s limits with tricky lines and distances and worked on developing adjustability within the canter to achieve different striding between combinations. This was great fun despite the extra-terrestrial Werribee wind trying to rip us off our horses and a very inconspicuous Houdini (loose horse) from the next arena making a statement by galloping full pelt around our course for a good 10 minutes. We must have been having far too much fun because we managed to go over time by longer than the lesson itself and miss the majority of our next seminar with Sarah Yeomans regarding riding and coaching overseas in countries like South Africa and Singapore where they are trying to become more involved with equestrian. Luckily she was really lovely and gave us a quick debrief afterwards and answered all our questions
Queenie popping through the tricky curved oxer, verticle, apex line
Overall it was an incredible weekend and amazing to meet so many new people from all disciplines and get to know my fabulous fellow eventers even better! It was also great to push the boundaries of our confidence (on and off a horse!), try new things and just have fun. Many thanks to Equestrian Victoria and the diligent organisers for providing this opportunity, the selectors (particularly our lovely eventing ladies!), our super coach Edith Kane, all of the presenters for giving us new insights and access to unlimited information
A big thanks also need to go to my partner Ben for giving up his whole weekend to chase us around with a camera, my super pony Queenie for always giving 100% even when I put her out of her comfort zone, the parents for listening to our speeches (I hope they weren’t too painful!) and my sponsors Flexible Fit, Fat Pony Equestrian Apparel, Rider’s Diary, Maxisoy and Flametree for their ongoing support! Finally big congratulations to the three Eventing finalists Teegan Ashby, Molly Barry and Elysha Walles – all of you guys are already fantastic ambassadors for our sport and any one of you would make an unbelievable representative for 2013/14. I recommend all keen young Victorian equestrians give this a go next year, it’s a one-of-a-kind experience.
For more information and updates about the awards please head to the Equestrian Victoria Young Ambassador Facebook Page
