Interschool Equestrian

 I am Ciara Lukeis, and my horse, Ivy, is an ex-racehorse who is 5-years-old.                                                                                              About 9 months ago, I bought Ivy with the intention of retraining and selling her. When I saw Ivy on Facebook, she was very skinny and had a bad skin condition. Ivy's last race was two weeks prior to her auction.  I left school early and boarded a ferry with Mum to visit her. Despite not having any training or experience other than racing, she had a lot of need for improvement. She was brought home that same day, after a few months in a paddock with 10 other horses I left her to gain weight and learn how to be a horse again. I then started re-training her in January of this year, we went straight back to basics and started from fresh. Within a few months, I started teaching her to jump and she took it so well that she lit up whenever I jumped her, I then decided it was time to start competing with her.                                                                                                                                                 On May 17th 2024, Ivy and I competed in her second-ever competition at Boneo Park competing for Dromana College. We were jumping in sleeting rain I could barely see the jump in front of me, she handled herself incredibly and jumped perfectly despite the weather coming home with 3 clear rounds we finished 11th in a field of 26. She handled herself like a champ it was such a great day and outcome.

 I did buy Ivy to sell but safe to say she isn’t going anywhere, we will keep training and climbing the levels and see how far she can go!