VRC Member Paris Wilkinson still remembers the excitement she felt sitting in the back seat of her parents’ car as they made the long Friday night drive from Melbourne to the family farm in Gippsland.
There, six-year-old Wilkinson and her younger sister were reunited with their feisty Welsh show pony, Jewel, and Wilkinson happily spent the weekend riding him around the paddock and attending pony club events.
“Every weekend and school holiday we’d go to the farm and there are photos of me at only two or three sitting on the back of the big Clydesdales that my grandmother owned. Then I got Jewel who was beautiful – but a terror!” said Wilkinson, 23.
“Because he was a pony, we thought that he’d plod along and be easy to manage, but I’d go into the paddock with him and he’d just take off. I’d hold on as tight as I could with a monkey grip and just let him run.
“My great-grandmother, Isabelle, started riding at the age of 50 and rode until her late 80s, my grandmother, Barbara, only recently stopped riding at the age of 77, and my mum, Renae, also has horses. They couldn’t afford to have horses and to ride until they were older, so Mum wanted my sister and I to enjoy that world from when we were very young.
“But right from the start Mum taught us to be responsible and even some days when we were tired, she reminded us that our pony was relying on us and that he needed to be fed and cared for every day.”
While her sister stopped riding while still at school, Wilkinson maintained the family tradition. She juggled high school studies and an arts degree at the University of Melbourne with riding and competing. Wilkinson graduated from university last year and majored in history, media and communications. She now works part-time organising social media campaigns and events for small businesses but hopes to eventually use her social media skills in the equestrian field.