Amy Maskell at the International Showman of the Year, South Africa

On Wednesday the 1st of November, the Australian showman team travelled to South Africa to compete in an international competition between England, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia. The team consisted of Katherine Climas (Victoria), Jessica Stalling (NSW), Adam Linardi (Tasmania) and myself (Queensland). After a thirteen and a half-hour flight the team arrived and was taken to the accommodation. It was a stunning place called Farm Inn and I must say that is a fantastic experience, as the wake up call in the morning was a pride of roaring lions. 

The Australian team met up with the other teams and went sightseeing to the Monte Casino, where we were lucky enough to get some photos with three Springbok players who were staying there. We also spent a day at Sun City, where the Miss World pageant is being held in December.

On Saturday morning we travelled to the show and were given our pool horses for the competition.  Each team was given five horses to choose and match with the riders, however after discarding one horse from the pool and calling in the reserve horse it pulled up lame and we had to bring in a spare reserve horse for Katherine to ride. Each of us were matched with a horse which we rode through the entire competition.

The first two phases were the in-hand presentation and the dressage test. Australia did very well in the in-hand presentation and dominated the field with all four of our riders placing in the top seven. The dressage test was difficult for some of our horses due to their lack of experience in the field, however again the riders and horses put up a good show but were beaten by England and New Zealand, resulting in third place for this phase.

The second day dawned bright and early. The first event for our team on day two was the working hunter class. This was a very different experience for our riders as in Australia we have very few of these classes. All riders got their mounts around the course and did a fantastic job on unfamiliar horses. Australia placed fourth. The last event was the rider class. Again Australia proved to be very strong in this area, with Jessica and myself placing in the top four riders and Australia winning this phase.

Overall, Australia placed third with England taking out the title for the second year in a row. Individually all of our riders did extremely well, as some of our mounts didn't give us the best of rides at times. Katherine and I placed in the top ten in every discipline and Jess took out two wins, one in the in-hand and one in the rider.

After the competition the Australian team stayed for a few days to do some more sightseeing. In the next two days we saw everything, cheetahs, lions, tigers, leopards, springbok, elephants, giraffe, zebra, warthogs and many other things. The team also had our photo taken with a tame cheetah, Anthony.

South Africa has been an amazing experience and I have made many new friends and contacts in other countries. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has made this trip possible, because with out your support it would have been very difficult.

I'm looking forward to trying out for the team again. Next year it's Australia's turn to host the competition.

 
- Amy Maskell