Mackenzie Boundy has been riding since she was seven, trying everything from pony club to eventing to showing until she found her true passion – dressage.
I love dressage and I solely compete in that discipline, explains the 20-year-old Queensland rider. I was lucky to have a couple of wins at some major events on my previous horse, Prayer, who passed away at the start of this year. My current horse, BZ Fortune Cookie, or Finn as he’s known as at home, is a 16.2 hand high, eight-year-old Australian Warmblood I purchased in March this year after Prayer passed away. Since then we’ve been getting to know each other.
In their relatively short time together the pair have won Champion Novice at the NAGs 2* Regional Championships, Champion Medium Youth at the AAOR and Young Rider Championships and a third overall in the Medium at the 2018 Queensland State Championships and they were recently awarded Reserve Champion Elementary and Champion Elementary freestyle at the Queensland State Youth Championships.
Mackenzie’s not afraid of hard work. To be fit enough to ride at this level of competition I ride five to six days a week, she says. I take a lesson once a week with my coaches Elizabeth Coe and Emma Flavelle it’s sometimes a bit of a struggle as I have a couple of health issues but that gives Finn a lot of mini holidays, which he thoroughly enjoys!
Mackenzie plans to start on Advanced work with Finn over the summer.
I would also like to go and ride overseas to expand my knowledge so I’m looking into doing that in the near future. Of course it’s every horse girls dream to compete at the Olympics and represent their country, and that would be my ultimate aim.
While Mackenzie is a talented rider, she never forgets the people who have helped her get to where she is now: I would definitely like to give a shout out to my family, especially my mum who helps me with all things horse related, whether that’s feeding the horses when I’m unwell or driving me to comps and my dad, who would much rather be living on a golf course or on the waterfront!
Article taken from HorseVibes October 2018 issue.
