Growing up I never had the opportunity to compete very often, I didn’t have a trailer nor anyone to drive it for me. So often my yard would host every summer a little competition of our own, including show jumping, games, and an obstacle course – it was pretty good for hacking skills! So throughout my teenage years I was what many would call a ‘happy hacker’.

However, as soon as I joined the equestrian club at the University of Derby, #teamderby I began to enter in every competition I could, even doing a dressage test for the first time! Since then, I’ve got the bug and have continued to compete as often as I could with the university, which has also inspired me to compete in online competitions too.

This year I entered the team trials back in September and was lucky enough to earn my place on the university’s B team (second best competing team basically) where I am now in a league against other universities. The competitions themselves are ran by BUCS which is exciting however they do have all of their own sets of rules which are very complicated to first learn! However they are great at supporting university sport and you can find out more here: https://www.bucs.org.uk/homepage.asp#