NO sooner has Jake Hunter returned from his triumphant Youth Olympic showjumping campaign in China, he is off to Victoria this weekend to compete in the Australian Showjumping Championships.
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And, if he thought the competition was tough overseas, it will be just as fierce at the Werribee International Equestrian Centre because in one of his events he will be competing against his younger brother Cade.
The pair faced each other at this year’s Sydney Royal Easter Show and Cade came home with the champion ribbon.
Speaking to the brothers before they left for Werribee, they were pretty relaxed about the upcoming event and both vying for top place in the junior class for riders 18 years and under.
They are both coached by their mother Gail Hunter, herself a former champion showjumper, who also trains the family’s highly-successful team of showjumping horses.
This will be 15-year-old Cade’s first time competing at Werribee and he will be riding his 15-year-old Anglo-Arab gelding Kelstar.
He rode Kelstar at the Sydney Royal and, according to Jake, they make a formidable team.
Jake will saddle up on Le Laina, a 14 year-old Warmblood mare whom he described as being a horse no one else wanted but one that may prove everyone wrong.
In Jake’s second event at the competition, the young rider for 16-21 year olds, he will be riding his champion horse Midnight Rock.
It was on this horse that he took out the junior Australian championship at the same event in 2012.
Jake, who is in Year 12 at Singleton High School, won bronze at last month’s Youth Olympics in Nanjing.
At that competition all the riders used supplied horses and Jake’s mount For the Star, at seven years, was one of the youngest in the event.
The top three places in Nanjing went to riders from the Southern Hemisphere – New Zealand and Argentina.
Jake put that down to the fact that it was a more even playing field because the quality of the horses available in Europe usually gave their riders a bit of an edge.
What did he remember most about China apart from the games – air pollution.
Once Jake completes his HSC he will be moving to Ireland to join the Duffy Sport Horses team to become one of their riders competing at events in Ireland and in Europe.
