By Afraa Kori
Pakenham’s 14-year-old Harley McNaughton is set to compete in the FEI Jumping Children’s Classics final in Mexico from 12-17 November.
Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI) is an international equestrian competition, where two athletes per country compete in jumping.
Harley McNaughton and Zara Adnams were two Australians who qualified for the Children’s Classics final.
Their journey began with the Children’s Classic Qualifying event and the Gold Tour.
Gold Tour competitions take place all over the world and are conducted on a level playing field with the top 16 international riders competing against the top 16 riders from host countries.
FEI series supervisor for World and Nations Cup, Children’s Classics, Ponies Trophies and Longines League of Nation, Merijn Dubekdam said the Gold Tour qualifies for the FEI Jumping Children’s Classics final which will be organised on borrowed horses.
“Harley competed in the qualifier in Australia. He competed in the Gold Tour and was good enough, and managed to qualify for the final. He was the second best in the qualifier in Australia and was in the top two from Australia, so therefore qualified. But the ones that missed out, like their result wasn’t good enough to qualify. That might make them do better next time and try again if they’re still of the right age.”
FEI announced the results for the FEI Jumping Children’s Classics, with Harley finishing fifth and Zara third on the world ranking.
For Harley, being chosen to represent Australia is a dream come true and he’s determined to rise to the challenge.
“Sometimes you’re so focused on the future that you don’t realise you’re in the middle of what you once prayed for,” he said.
“My favourite part about competing in this is that I’ve been selected to choose. There’s like 60 people in the actual competitions from Australia that competed in it but this competition doesn’t just take every single country, they take from every country in the Oceania category. So that’s 500 to a thousand people competing for this one competition.
“The challenges I’ll be facing over there would be, having to adapt to the horse I’ll be riding because it’s not going to be my horse. As well as the challenges here, it’s just having to train more and be on top of my game and always trying to keep the horses fit. The prize is the world title and I would love to achieve to be able to go compete in the Olympics and compete in the Longines Jumping Tour.”
Harley is encouraging aspiring athletes to also chase their dreams and never look down on the power of grassroots sports.
“Always push yourself to limits and don’t ever back down. If people say you can’t do it, don’t believe them. You can do whatever you put your mind to.
“I’ve been asked before, do I worry about jumping the peak of heights? And I always say to them, no, I just go out there to have fun and do what I know I can do. And I just go out there to have fun and not worry about getting the right thing and everything. If you go out there just to have some fun and try and have a nice round but not be worried if you don’t, then you will go better than you expect.
“If I win the competition I would be trying to promote a lot of my local shows to tell them how much the local shows mean to me, like the local… Pakenham Show.
Coach Paul Williams said Harley’s determination and work ethic contributed to his success.
“He’s competing with kids his own age, but he also competes often in the same class with adults. So there’s a variable of the amount of pressure that’s needed to be able to do what they do. Not everyone can cope with that, but he seems to be able to do that at this stage of his career,” he said.
“It’s not like a swimmer or an athlete, you’ve got your own natural talent when you get involved with horses. You’ve actually got to have the ability to ride horses and get on with them. It’s a slightly different way of measuring somebody’s performance, because you can be the best horse in the world, and the best rider in the world, and still not necessarily win the class, just by having some little things go wrong. So it’s not a swimmer and an athlete, they judge on their time, which is pretty obvious, but when you come to riding horses, there’s a lot of other factors involved.
“I’ve been working with him since he was about five, so he’s now 14, so he’s changed. When you’ve had them that long, it almost becomes like a child, so you ride their success, and you also feel their pain when it’s a failure. It’s one of those things that you invest yourself mentally into their success and you give them the tools to be able to do what they need to do, and hopefully they can apply it when needed. I’m really proud of what he’s achieved so far.”
Additionally, Harley participated in another state competition and won the championship title before heading to Mexico for an international tour.
Hosted by Equestrian Australia, The Australian Championship was held in Sydney from 5-10 November.
