I was born in Colchester, England and began riding horses at the age of 3 at West Mersey with a wonderful teacher - Miss Catchpole. My parents were not involved with horses initially but were very supportive and my mother particularly enjoyed the competition scene. I was lucky enough to always have great ponies and competed in everything I could get myself to - Eventing being my first love.
On leaving school I trained and qualified as a Nurse (SRN) at the Middlesex hospital but I was offered a fabulous position at Wiseland stables with Jane Houghton-Brown my long time trainer and friend. It was while I was here that I met Heath, who had been training in Germany and come to the stables to do some event training. He came with me to Bramham 3DE where I was competing - the first and last time he ever strapped! Without knowing what I was letting myself in for – I came to Australia!
When I first arrived, Heath and I worked from his parents stables in Blackhill, NSW In 1983 Bob & Judy Mitchell started the NSW Equestrian Centre at Lochinvar and Heath and I were involved there from the beginning and I fairly quickly made the transition to Dressage, after forming a partnership with the wonderful STIRLING WILTON. He was a very reluctant Eventer but a fabulous dressage horse and with him I was part of the first Australian Dressage Team to travel overseas to the World Equestrian Games in Stockholm, Sweden in 1990.
1995 - competed at the European Dressage Championships on Shaun France’s BARRINGTON OCK TEDI.
1996 - travelled back to Europe with Dr Margaret Evans horse EXELLENT. I was lucky enough to stay and train at Stal Bartels Academy in The Netherlands with Tineke Bartels. I returned to Europe again in 1997 with an Australian team to train firstly in Germany with Herr Herbert Rehbein and then back to Tineke Bartels.
1999 EXELLENT won the Pacific League World Cup Final here in Australia and we travelled to Europe once again to s’Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands but during the competition EXELLENT trod on a roofing nail in the arena, resulting in him being taken to Utrecht Vet Hospital and ending the sad day on the operating table.
I am sure this incident did not help our Olympic dreams and we narrowly missed out on selection for the Australian Olympic Team in 2000.
After EXELLENT I had two more great Grand Prix horses - Robyn Horsley's wonderful horse, ARGLEN KALEB who was sadly put down after a colic operation and Clyde Wunderwald’s GREENOAKS LEGEND whom we had to retire due to injury.
In 2006 I took over the ride of Susie Duddy’s beautiful black mare DONNA CARRERA who was reserve horse for the Beijing Olympics in 2008. DONNA has now been sold to Sweden.
I am currently competing on my own bay stallion JIVE MAGIC and we have just made the jump to Grand Prix. He has already won 2 Grand Prix classes at small Australian shows. He is a very exciting horse and I will be aiming for Australian Team selection on him.