Australia’s Top Endurance Riders Set to Take on the World’s Best

Four Australians are among the 153 riders set to compete at the 2012 FEI World Endurance Championships.

When the 160 kilometre event gets underway this Saturday, among the line-up will be two of Australia’s most seasoned Endurance riders and two riders making their World Championships debut.

Joining Queensland’s mother and daughter duo of Penny and Alexandra Toft will be ACT teenager Talea Haskow-Stewart and West Australian’s Norbert Radny. It will be the first World Endurance Championships for 19 year old Talea and 17 year old Alexandra.

Competing at the World Championships is the realisation of a long term goal for Talea.  Her horse – Blake’s Haven Bombora, was purchased by her mother for just $200 as a yearling back in 2002.

“I feel so privileged to be at this event as part of the Australian team and I’m really hoping that I’ll be able to do them proud,” she said.  “The atmosphere at this event is going to be like nothing I’ve ever seen at an Endurance competition before,” she added. 

The teenager sees her first World Championship outing as a valuable learning opportunity. 

“I’m here to compete with the best and hopefully I can pick up a lot of knowledge from them,” she said.

“I believe the biggest challenge for Bombora and I will be having so many other horses around us and that’s something that we’re not going to be able to control. We can ride to the best of our ability but in this circumstance with so many other horses around if someone else makes a mistake you can be the one to pay for it,” Talea said. 

The course at England’s Euston Park weaves its way through the picturesque Eastern Anglian countryside and is comparatively flat to most of the world’s endurance courses but with constant direction changes it’s sure to test even the most experienced combinations.

“There are so many challenges in this course, it’s going to be quite technical and take a good working team to complete at the end of the day,” Talea said. 

You can learn more about Australia’s horse and rider combinations by visiting the team’s bio page on the Australian Equestrian Team website.

FEI TV (www.feitv.org) will broadcast the competition live on Saturday 25 August 2012. The broadcast will start at 07:55CEST.

Quick Link

• For further event information please visit the event website http://www.eustonparkendurance.co.uk/

Story: Equestrian Australia