{"id":30483,"date":"2016-11-16T14:01:01","date_gmt":"2016-11-16T03:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/?p=30483"},"modified":"2016-12-06T10:14:21","modified_gmt":"2016-12-05T23:14:21","slug":"saddleworld-rising-star-annie-simmons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/2016\/11\/saddleworld-rising-star-annie-simmons\/","title":{"rendered":"Saddleworld November Rising Star: Annie Simmons"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Saddleworld<\/a>\"anniesimmonsflorett\"Eighteen year old Annie Simmons won the FEI Young Rider CDI-Y Individual test at the Australian National Championships on her mare Florett while also coming second in both the CDI-Y Teams test and\u00a0Freestyle.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Originally from the Northern Territory, Annie grew up, \u201c\u2026two hours out of town on a mango farm.\u201d<\/p>\n

So why the horses? \u201cIt\u2019s Mum\u2019s fault. She used to ride. I started at Pony Club, mounted games and I did Interschools. I\u2019m first year out of school now and I\u2019m studying law at QUT. We moved to Queensland when I was in Year 8. I\u2019m taking 6 months off Uni at the moment because I didn\u2019t take a gap year and I really wanted to focus on horses for a while and get my head out of a book. It\u2019s been a good break, but long term I need a job that will help support my sport. I always want horses to be a hobby and I want to keep my work separate, otherwise it\u2019s too intense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Previously a show horse rider, Annie has been riding dressage seriously for about three years and has two horses, Florett and Rozzie Ryan\u2019s ex Grand Prix star Bullwinkle.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got Florett when I was 14. She\u2019s actually the same age as me, just a day younger. She\u2019s been the perfect horse to learn on. Jenny Gehrke, who is one of Mum\u2019s closest friends and has known me since I was born, found Florett for me. Jenny rang Mum one day and said she\u2019d found the horse and she then helped me for the first two years. I train with Tor van den Berg now. Florett was Prix St Georges when I got her but I\u2019ve started doing Inter this year on her.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Tor back at home, wife Mel had the job of helping Annie at his year\u2019s Nationals. \u201cShe\u2019s a cool customer. She doesn\u2019t take much managing,\u201d relayed\u00a0Mel.<\/p>\n

Annie has had some inspiration from Maree Tomkinson as well, who gave Annie a wonderful opportunity when she was nine and lent her a pony that she went to the Show Horse Nationals on. \u201cI think Maree is where I got the dressage bug from. I went down for the Nationals and spent a week training with her. I\u2019d sit there and watch her ride her dressage horses and I thought, \u2018This is what I want to do.\u2019 Maree still watches my tests and comments and is always really positive even though I don\u2019t actually train with her anymore. She\u2019s such a great mentor. Everyone at the shows is supportive and I think it\u2019s a warmer atmosphere than maybe it used to be. People can help you with out anyone else feeling like they have had their toes stepped on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Annie\u2019s family is also very supportive. \u201cMum is the best Mum in the world, the best groom in the world and the best horse finder in the world!\u201d And does she ever get a sit on Florett? \u201cShe gets to ride Florett on a trail ride once a week – as long as she rides on a loose rein!\u201d<\/p>\n

Annie\u2019s older sister also rides but her younger brother is involved in a more indirect way, \u201cHe loves football and quad bikes. That\u2019s why my horses are so quiet. He and his friends will drive their quad bikes along the arena when I\u2019m riding!\u201d<\/p>\n

And what does Bullwinkle have in store? \u201cI\u2019ve had Bullwinkle for a year and a half. I went and stayed with the Ryans for two weeks when I got him and Rozzie helped me get to know him better. However the HSC year was quite stressful so he\u2019s not really done much. I think we\u2019ll try and take him to Boneo and get going again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Annie is sponsored by Horseland.<\/p>\n

\n

\"risingstar\"<\/p>\n

Introducing the Saddleworld Rising Star<\/strong><\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s only Rising Star \u2013 Young Rider award recognising excellence over all three Olympic disciplines. Each monthly winner will receive a prize from the Saddleworld Range. To be eligible, riders must be under 21 on January 1, 2016.<\/p>\n

Winners will be selected for their performances at Young Rider Championships, and will also be considered for their performances in open events.<\/p>\n

This month\u2019s winner, Annie Simmons, receives a PDS Freedom Girth valued at $239.95 and will be in the draw to win her choice of a Pessoa Heritage Pro valued at $4,295.00 or PDS Carl Hester Euro Pro Saddle valued at $4,395.00.<\/p>\n

www.saddleworld.com.au<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eighteen year old Annie Simmons won the FEI Young Rider CDI-Y Individual test at the Australian National Championships on her mare Florett while also coming second in both the CDI-Y Teams test and\u00a0Freestyle. Originally from the Northern Territory, Annie grew up, \u201c\u2026two hours out of town on a mango farm.\u201d So why the horses? \u201cIt\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30485,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1544,1223],"class_list":["post-30483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dressage","tag-rising-star","tag-saddleworld"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30483"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30489,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30483\/revisions\/30489"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}