AROUND THE TRAPS

Ax

YOUNG RIDER

Riding High

DANNII CUNNANE catches up with Jessie Rice-Ward, the 2018 NSW Junior Athlete of the year.

At the tender age of 17 Jessie Rice-Ward is taking the show jumping world by storm.

“I’ve been show jumping my whole career and riding since I was two-yearsold,” explains Jessie. “I definitely followed in my mother’s footsteps with my interest in horses and I’ve had some great successes.”

Jessie’s achievements to date include back-to-back Australian Junior Champion in 2016 and 2017; placing third overall in the Australian Young Rider table for 2018; being named runner-up in the Stal Tops Young Rider series for 2018 and - the highlight - being awarded the 2018 NSW Junior Athlete of the year.

Jessie currently has three competition horses who travel the show jumping circuit with her. She’s owned CP Southern Cross for two years. The 16.1 hand high Warmblood, whose stable name is Titan, has competed up to Grand Prix with his young rider. “I also have Dusky Farm Cavalier, whose stable name is Squiggles,” she says. “He’s a 16.3 hands high 11-yearold Warmblood/Thoroughbred cross we purchased in January 2018. Lastly I have Dinero, stable name Darcy, a seven-yearold, 16 hand high Holsteiner, by Diarado and out of a Cassini 1 mare I’ve had the pleasure of riding for the past 18 months.”

Jessie trains and works hard every day to achieve her outstanding results. “I’m a perfectionist so I like to push myself,” she says. “I work hard because I want to improve all the time and see how much I can achieve. This year I’ll be competing at the Sydney Royal Easter Show as well as at my personal favourite, the Aquis Champions tour in April. Further towards the end of the year will be the New South Wales State and Australian Championships which I am looking forward to very much.”

Jessie’s ambition for this year is to start in a few more Grand Prix events and to continue to be consistent in the Young Rider classes. She’s also training Darcy to, as she says: “The best of my ability, he’s showing a lot of promise and I want to concentrate on that. I’m a bit of a realist but I do have dreams of riding in the Olympics and World Equestrian Games, but I prefer to focus on the short-term goals that will help me get to the bigger events.”

Even with Jessie’s huge success, she remains humble and acknowledges her support network, particularly her parents, for their help. “I’d also like to say a huge thank you to the Evans Family for being so accommodating to us,” she says, “and my coach, Emma Smith, for all the help she gives me, as well as a shout out to all my amazing sponsors.”

When Jessie isn’t clearing jumps, she enjoys her free time. “I like spending time with my friends as well as playing with my puppy Benji,” says Jessie. “I’m a little unsure of what I’ll do after school, but I would ideally love to continue working with horses and get to the top of the sport!”

Top Tac

FEATURE

Transcending limiting beliefs

Tanja Mitton is a specialist in rider posture and mindset, writes JANE CAMENS.

One of the major areas of Tanja Mitton’s work is helping riders gain or regain confidence. “I look at it as regaining confidence in ourselves,” says the qualified Neuro Linguist Programmer (NLP). Tanja has worked with many people who’ve had bad experiences, and in most cases, she says, it’s due to a lack of confidence.

“The reason they lose confidence is because they don’t trust themselves,” she says. “They give their power away. There’s an internal dialogue they can’t get out of their head that creates fear. I work with the person to show them that it’s pure illusion.”

Tanja was born in Germany where she grew up in a non-horse family. But she always dearly wanted to ride and was eventually allowed to take lessons. “In Germany, almost everyone who rides starts off with classical instruction in the riding schools,” she told HorseVibes. That’s the basis of the coaching she brought to Australia 24 years ago when she followed her Aussie husband out here.

Tanja competed in Germany both as a young rider as well as in open classes, jumping up to 1.40m. Eventually, needing a job, she moved away from fulltime show jumping to work for three-and-a-half years in an equine hospital. When an opportunity arose to go to England to work with rehabilitating injured horses she jumped at the chance and moved to the UK. That’s where she met event rider Richard Mitton, whom she eventually married. He was in England running eventing comps - as he still does in Australia.

These days Tanja, 50, is based on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, and spends much of her time travelling up and down the Australian east coast holding clinics on rider posture and mindset.

Tanja is close to being a legend at the equestrian centre where I ride. Her name is invoked with devotion by her followers. “Remember what Tanja Mitton says about breath,” they say, or about posture, or about lower leg contact. But mainly what it’s about is breath, and the power of the breath to relax your body.

By the time you read this Tanja will have returned from a brief visit back to Germany, the country of her birth, and will again be holding clinics up. She is increasingly well-known in Australia for her instruction on rider posture and mindset.

Playing with the classical European horse-training pyramid, Tanja has developed a ridertraining pyramid that focuses on the rider’s posture and breath. “I thought it could be of value to translate the way I understand the German training scale for people who’ve not been taught that way,” she says. “We have fantastic coaches here in Australia who understand horse training. The thing that lets riders down - even some Grand Prix riders – is that we don’t have enough coaches here understanding rider position,” she says.