NICOLE Stubbs was delighted by her pleasing results at the Arabian Horse Society’s Australian Championships held in Sydney this month.
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Old Bar based Nicole and her husband, Paul, took two horses to Sydney, a partbred mare, Streamville Park Fayvia and a purebred gelding, High Calibre.
The competition was both intense and strongly attended. However, from the five day show Nicole emerged with two Australian titles with Streamville Park Fayvia and three runners up with High Calibre.
Streamville Park Fayvia is now the Australian champion part bred ridden mare, and the Australian champion led part bred mare shown by an amateur 18 years and over, as well as being a finalist in two other events.
High Calibre is now the reserve Australian champion purebred ridden gelding, reserve Australian champion bridle path hack over 15hh ridden by an amateur owner 18 years and over and he was also reserve champion in the Silver Snaffle which is a class for young horses.
“Considering this is the biggest Arabian show we have in Australia, we were delighted with our results, I still can not believe we did it,’’ Nicole smiled.
She rode the horses, while Paul took part in the led events.
Nicole said the results in the East Coast Arabian Championships held a month before the Australian titles were very good.
“We won two champions and three reserves, but the Australian championship is another ball game altogether.
“We weren’t getting our hopes up,’’ Nicole said.
Nicole has been riding horses in competition since she was a young teen. She competed in hack events throughout the 1990s including Sydney Royal Easter Show. Along with Paul she’s been involved at the top level of competition with Arabians since 2002, with the exception of a few years off to have children.
She’ll be concentrating on dressage events in the local area for the next couple of months while her next major engagement will be the NSW Amateur Show held at Hawkesbury Showground in July.
Nicole also pays tribute to her coach, Carolyn Begg from Rainbow Flat.
“We wouldn’t have achieved these wonderful results without Carolyn’s help,’’ she said.
“She’s a wonderful coach.’’