Where, Who and What Now, and Where Next? Part 1...

Lately I've been reflecting a lot on where I am, who I am, what I'm doing and where I'm going. It's pretty important to know the answers to these questions when achieving goals. If any of the answers don't fit in to the equation where the product is success, it must be changed! With so much in my mind to answer these questions with, I'll cover each one in a series of posts...
Where am I?
This is a big one... Obviously in relation to how close you are to a goal, I am miles and miles away from where I was when I first arrived in the UK two years ago. I can only just make out that little dot on the horizon which is the little 16 year-old, open-minded and terribly naiive to the real world of the sport and in fact, life in general!

My possessions in January 2010... who would have
 though I could be minimalistic!

For the old time readers, you would know I settled myself at the Talland School of Equitation in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, for the first year. I still consider Talland my second home and Pammy Hutton FBHS my second mother, who I enjoy taking a visit to every now and then to watch her lessons and always leaving with my inspiration fuel tank full.
It difficult being a foreigner (or a "convict" as some people may say :P). It took me 7 months to realize that when people asked me 'You alright?' it translated into 'How are you?' and not 'What's wrong? You look upset'... I couldn't figure out why people thought I looked so sad! I was fascinated by the normality of waffles being made out of potato, eaten with tomato sauce and eggs, and not a pastry that you put in the toaster and eat with maple syrup! The "Heart" radio station was the only station I knew existed for a year, I quickly figured out that English TV was utter rubbish, Galaxy chocolate became my new best friend and I started to drink tea like I breathed air. Much to my old Australian friends' horror, I had started putting "well" in front of words like "good", described things as being "proper" and if something was nice, it was "lush". By the end of my first year, I was definitely well-conditioned to live in England and not look out of place!
It's those small things that I look back on and think "wow", but the real shock is when I look back on my career, starting out so very small at 16 and now blooming into something I admittedly was not prepared for so soon. I had one horse, the wonderful Julius, who was my first ever horse after moving on from ponies that came over with me from Australia. I was just going to chip away at him and find my feet, though it was only a matter of weeks before I was given the ride on a gorgeous gray Andalusion stallion, Blue. This was a huge milestone in itself because 1) a stallion? I have to ride a stallion?! Is that allowed?? In England, of course it is. And 2) it was amazing that someone thought that this little foreigner was good enough and trustworthy enough to give their horse to.

The beautiful "Blue"

At this point I had no idea about Juniors or Young Riders, the process of squadding, the system to qualify for regionals and nationals. I remember being sent out to my first competition on Blue to do an Advanced/Medium (the highest level I had ever ridden in competition) with only the very helpful and supportive Emma, the secretary from Talland. If there was one thing that conquered my nerves in competition like no other, this was definitely it. It was a serious case of "Just do it" - Nike were definitely on to something. It's like when spooky horses are surrounded by so many scary things they just don't know what to look at so knuckle down and work... I had far too much to stress about that it went past the point of knowing what to stress about! And now, I take pride in my extremely cool, calm and collected approach to competing!
I ended up getting 66% in that first competition, and went on to qualify for Addington Regionals in which I came 8th - Amazing! At this point I still didn't know anything about Juniors/Young Riders in Britain... As far as I was concerned I only wanted to get to the FEI Young Rider World Cup in Frankfurt to compete for Australia on Julius. That all changed once I got Sebastian...

The excitement when I recieved my jacket in
the post was unreal!

I bought Seb when I moved to Adam Kemp's yard after starting my A-levels at Hartpury. It has been the best thing that has happened to me in my life, and I can't ever thank my parents enough for supporting me and my dream by agreeing to let me own this amazing horse. Adam and Matt (Frost) were unbelievably helpful and supportive to getting my goals on track with him and giving me the confidence to ride and manage him. After changing nationality to British, they led me into the Juniors scene for the British team, starting with being invited to a squad viewing day in January 2011 after scoring two 72%'s in Advanced/Medium in my first competition with him. Still naiive and unaware of the importance of squad training, I didn't even know who the people watching me in the box next to the arena were... The whole test I wondered if they were important. Yes, Casey, they were the selectors. Thankfully that too started out well, with a 67% from Judy Harvey in my first ever Junior Team test trial run.

Seb and I at Addington CDI

After countless small competitions with Seb to get my mileage and experience up on him, I eventually went to my first Premier League, Myerscough, in March. That too started well, with 68% and 3rd place. Small competitons and Premier Leagues continued, confidence was growing, and in April, the moment I had lived for happened... I was invited to compete for Great Britain at Addington CDI - my first ever international. I remember the excitement of receiving my red 'Great Britain' jacket, sewing the union jack onto my tailcoat and saddlecloth, and crying when we drove through the gates of Addington when we first arrived there.
After that first international, it's safe to say I was much more aware of what was going on, although I still couldn't fathom the fact that at that time in the previous year I was a completely unknown rider hacking around Talland's fields, jumping in Friday's group lessons and mastering flying changes on school horses.

Finishing my test at Hickstead CDI in the
International arena... Quite surreal!

I was much better prepared for my second international, Dressage at Hickstead, which was lucky as it was definitely the biggest competition I had ever been to! Having grandstand of people watching me do my second ever freestyle in the International arena with flags and banners, being judged my international level judges and having experts commentating through earpieces to the audience was definitely a bit like a reverie. It was at that point when I was with Seb in the prize-giving, with the whole audience standing whilst God Save the Queen played, that I thought "Yep... This little Aussie really has come far".