Grace O’Sullivan recently took part in the North Island Secondary Schools Equestrian Championships, riding her cherished horse, Mallowpuff. The competition was a tough one, attracting some of the best young riders from across the region.

This is Grace’s story of the special bond she shares with Mallowpuff as they faced the challenges of the event together.

Written by Grace O’Sullivan 

I travelled down to Taupo to compete at the North Island Secondary School Champs. It was an incredible learning experience for me and my family and definitely the biggest competition environment I’ve ever been in. 630 competitors, and their horses competed over four days and the organizers told us that NISS is now New Zealand’s second biggest equestrian competition after horse of the year.

I participated in dressage level 1, 70-80cm show jumping, and 70-80cm show hunter. I completed three dressage tests, one round of show Hunter and two rounds of showjumping, there were approximately 40 competitors in my class.

I came away very proud of me and my horse Mallowpuff as we placed in the top 15 or 20 in almost all of our dressage classes. For dressage we got the test scores of 62, 67.679, and 67.917 in quite tough classes with really close marks. Unfortunately, we were eliminated in our showjumping classes due to refusals which were caused by Mallowpuff’s saddle slipping in the first class then by the time we got to our second class we had had a bit of a confidence knock. However, we bounced back in our show Hunter class where we jumped clear with only one refusal due to quite slippery ground early in the morning.

Quite a tough competition but all in all very pleased with the results we came away with and happy with how well Mallowpuff coped in such a big environment.