Paulina's Passion - Horse Riding
Paulina has been fascinated with horses ever since she can remember. From a very early age she has been riding horses on a lead rope and spending as much time as she could with them, even if that meant just going the stable and feeding carrots to these animals. When she was 4 we travelled to Canada where we went for a hike with horses. It took us 4 hours and she loved it. That was the moment we knew that horses would be a big part of her life.
Paulina’s love for these animals has been there for a very long time, but she only started to ride in the professional show jumping sector around a year and a half ago. She got her first horse last year in March, our little 4 year old Wendy. They have taught each other everything, being both beginners in this area. Their first competition took place in July 2018, and from that moment she has just got better and better. Within 1 year she went from not knowing how to do anything with the horse to competing in international competitions at an extremely high level. When Paulina started riding she had one main goal, which seemed impossible last year. That was to take part in the most prestigious competition in Poland: Cavaliada4*. She participated countless amounts of times in regional competitions, and with each competition we could see how well she's developing. So we started going to national shows where the level was extremely high. There are around 80 kids competing against each other on very difficult courses and on the best ponies in Poland. Paulina participated in her first national competition in June this year, where she had very good results, such as 2nd,3rd and 4th places. We then went on to take part in the Silesian championships, where she was second with her pony Wendy. The national championships of Poland, for which she qualified in June, were extremely difficult. However, she was placed 13th with one pony and 17th with the other one, out of around 90 ponies in each category. The girls Paulina competes against are much older and have been training for a long time, whereas she's very fresh to the sport. Despite this fact, she shows her best efforts at every show and never disappoints us, bringing trophies home. We now have 3 ponies: Wendy, Anapon Moonlight Dancer and out little girl Pysia,. They're all very small, but put their whole heart into every jump and each show.
Cavaliada is a huge international show in which world class athletes from all around the world perform. There are around 500 horses competing there this year. It is every little girl’s dream to perform in Cavaliada Future, and so it was Paulina’s. It’s not as easy it seems though… We had to go to 6 shows where she was earning points, only the 3 best scores count. These shows lasted for 6 consecutive weeks, which was very tiring for Paulina and the horses as well. 3500km driven in the car all over Poland, Warsaw, Poznan twice, and Lodz. After the last show, which was 2 weeks ago, Paulina was on the border of getting the opportunity to go to Cavaliada, so we had to wait for the official results. They were released and we were all speechless. What seemed so impossible last year has become true.
Paulina attends the international school (stage 5), which means a lot of work and tests very often. She's very determined therefore has very good grades and amazing results at shows. She can cope with school and a lot of hard work in sport very well. She's only 9 years old and has already achieved a lot. However, that’s just the beginning. One of her main goals now is to compete in the European championships within the next few years, where the obstacle height is 135-140 for the ponies category. For now, keep your fingers crossed for the upcoming Cavaliada competition!
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