YOUNG RIDER
Competing at the 2019 Streaky Bay Rodeo, where Alishia won the Junior competition and came 3rd in the Open (Image by Kurt Walter Fine Art Images).
YO U N G R I D E R
The queen of speed
S
eventeen-year-old Alishia Thomas hails from Whyalla in South Australia. Last year
she completed her Year 12 studies, which included a Certificate Three in Horsemanship. She comes from a family of four: dad Andy, mum Melissa and sister Courtney all ride and compete. The thing with Alishia though, is that she’s blisteringly fast in her chosen sport of barrel racing. So fast, that she was the 2019 Australian Barrel Horse Association
Barrel racing is a discipline in which horse and rider sprint around a circuit of barrels in an attempt to achieve the fastest time – and that’s something at which Alishia Thomas is very, very good, writes AMANDA MAC. 98 | H O R S E V I B E S J A N / F E B 2 0 2 1
National Finals Junior 1D Champion, and scooped the 2019/20 season Junior Barrel Race Champion, Second Division Champion, and the title of Junior All Round Cowgirl on the Festival State Rodeo Circuit. She also won the 2019/20 season First and Second Junior
