Tommie with his horse Redlands Ivy Six at training on Tuesday afternoon.
Over the school holidays, Harden boy Tommie Parker reached new heights in his young Pony Club career after not only being selected to represent Pony Club Australia in the under 14s prelim competition but also featuring in the ‘Boys Ride Too’ magazine all the way over in the UK.
Tommie was elected as one of three NSW representatives for the International team, who will participate in the Australian dressage competition.
Tommie will be one of four under-14s for Australia who will be scored not only as a individual but as a country.
The competition features eight countries most of which are in the Commonwealth apart from the U.S.A.
All competitors will have to have their ’test video’s between the 8th-16th of October.
Tommie’s mum Emily couldn’t be prouder of her son’s achievements and thinks there’s plenty more to come.
“We’re very proud of him, it’s a massive achievement and a testament to all his hard work,” said Emily.
“This is the highest level he represented, he’s made the zone team in eventing and showjumping and was supposed to do dressage with the state team but it was postponed due to weather.
“He hasn’t had the chance to represent his state team, now he gets the chance to represent the Australian team which is pretty exciting.
“We follow the ‘Boys Ride Too’ magazine and in the last issue they put out they asked Tommie to write a little profile about himself and give them some pictures and he went in as one of two Australian boys.
They were featuring two boys from each country.
“He was really stoked about that. He’s excited about it all and he deserves to be he’s worked really hard,” Emily continued. “He’s representing our community and the Harden Pony Club and it’s a pat on the back for all his hard work his done over the past few years.
“He really loves horse riding and loves what it means to be able to train a horse well.
“It’s not his favourite discipline, he actually prefers the eventing and show-jumping but he does dressage because it’s actually the basis of all training across the other disciplines.”
“I’d love to thank all Tommie’s coaches, The Harden Pony Club and all of his supporters,” Emily said.
Tommie’s horse ‘Redlands Ivy Six’ or Ivy for short has been his main show horse, but Ivy recently got a new friend with Emily saying the family purchased “a new, bigger horse” a month ago.
Tommie has only recently started riding the horse.
Tommie continues to do a great job at making not only the Harden Pony Club proud but also the rest of the Harden community and of course his main sponsors (his parents) as well.
Well done Tommie for your great achievements. Just another young local start putting Harden on the worldwide sporting map.
Tully Potts
