3 minute read
Young Rider: Amber Hamilton
YOUNG RIDER
Getting an early start
Often seen passaging around the feedlot, or piaffing amid a mob of cattle, Amber Hamilton likes to train while she works, as SUZY JARRATT discovered.
Amber Hamilton spends hours each day mustering on her parents’ 13.5 thousand acre property in Eidsvold, two hours west of Bundaberg, “and a long way from civilisation,” adds the 22-year-old horsewoman, who began riding before she could walk. “In fact, even before I was born I was on a horse as Mum was having dressage lessons when she was pregnant with me.”
This is one dedicated rider who was just a kid when she decided what she wanted to do for a living. After attending Mundubbera State School she wasn’t keen on the idea of boarding school: “I didn’t want to leave my horses as I wanted to make a career out of them so my parents, Dugald and Jeanine, agreed that I could learn through the Charters Towers School of Distance Education.”
Amber, who is also interested in the cattle side of the business, added some agricultural courses to her studies and continued to regularly compete at various equestrian events. “I was lucky when I left school. We had land and we had stock so I had a kick start. I began training outside horses and breaking in,” she says.
Some of her breaking skills originated with one of the locals. “I did some work experience with Leah Read, it was only for a fortnight but I learnt a lot which I now combine with the methods I’ve figured out for myself.”
Along with her mum Jeanine and sister Brandy, Amber has also created and developed Woodlands Karouselle Performance Horses, which she began with one nine-month-old Welsh D foal, Anakie Saint Nick. She now has an assortment of breeds and types at various stages of training, some of which are for sale.
She has competitively show jumped and evented but her greatest love is dressage. “It’s fundamentally important in all the equestrian disciplines,” she says. “My very first instructor was Linda Shore, a dressage specialist. She still drives five hours from Toowoomba to teach me and a small group of other riders. And even when I’m the only one here at Eidsvold she still comes to give me a lesson. Linda’s been there for me for years.”
Amber was recently delighted with an Inter 1 she rode with Anakie Saint Nick in a Virtual Dressage Series conducted by Equestrian Queensland and Dressage Queensland. Mary Seefried, a FEI 5* judge, awarded the pair a winning score of 68 per cent. “I was pretty stoked. The only disappointing thing was that the test was unofficial,” Amber explains. “It was Nick’s first Inter 1. He’s twelve now, fourteen and five-eighths high and most definitely my heart horse, He’s the one I do the Grand Prix movements with when we’re out mustering.”
Over the years she has successfully ridden at Interschools in Melbourne, CDIs, and breed shows in Sydney, but these days she does little interstate travel; even getting to Queensland events is a long haul. “The closest competition venue is three and a half hours away and the nearest after that is five and a half hours. I could move but I have everything right here other than the competitions.”
And there is so much to do at home that her social life is non-existent. “I just work and nothing else, but I’m happy about that. I have a Welsh cross gelding, a Warmblood cross and some babies who I think will be pretty special. And because I’m keen to get into some serious breeding I recently purchased a Hannoverian weanling colt by Le Formidable.”
The future looks bright for Amber Hamilton. With plenty of room to bring up her horses, excellent training facilities, and wonderfully supportive parents, there is, she says, little to complain about.
