Photos Hannah Lusotari and Eva Photography (last image).
Samantha began riding at the age of five, competing in eventing, traveling over the North Island with young ponies her mother had brought sight unseen as 3-5 year olds. Sam successfully participated in Eventing up to 95cm and Show Jumping up to 110cm. She has represented Franklin Thames Valley in Eventing (2017,2018, and 2019) as well as Dressage (2017,2019,2020)
Her current competition horse is Dolcetto II, known as Darcy at home. She has had Darcy since Sam was 14 years old, and he was a young 4 year old. Darcy really enjoys swimming in the river and going for canters in the paddock.
Sam says "I have trained with Angela Lloyd since I was 10 years old. She has been amazing at sharing her knowledge and methods in producing young horses, helping me understand what I’m feeling when riding and how to achieve the outcome I’m after - as well as many opportunities to ride and compete different horses.
My future goals are to compete Dolcetto II at FEI young rider level, with the hope I can take him further up through the grades. I really enjoy working and training young horses, so would love to train my own horses through the grades to GP level. Once I finish school I would like to go and work overseas in Australia or Europe with the hope of gaining more experience to achieve my goals. I’m super excited for the future."
Some of Sam's major achievements have been:
- Dressage NZ Youth Squad
- BOP Championships Bronze advanced Medium Champion 2022
- Novice U25 Dressage Champion 2021
- Medium U25 Dressage Res Champion 2022
- Equizee Pony and Young rider points series Gold Champion 2022
- AMS premier league point series young rider Medium Champion 2022
