Australia: Will Rewarded

Dailyadvertiser.com.au - Full Article

SIMON BRUNSDON
08 Oct, 2011 01:00 AM

WHEN most school students were spending the holidays playing video games and hanging with their friends, Wagga's Courtney Lewis was competing for a national title.

The 14-year-old Mater Dei Catholic College student made the marathon two-day road trip to South Australia's Barossa Ranges to compete in the prestigious Tom Quilty Gold Cup.

The cup is the national championships for endurance horse riding and brings together hundreds of Australia's best riders.

Created by famous Australian horseman Tom Quilty in 1966, the Gold Cup is now known as the largest professional endurance ride in the southern hemisphere.

It was Lewis's first time travelling to South Australia to compete, and she ended up running third in the junior division on horse Kyang Mister Personality.

The pair was one of just nine to finish the 160-kilometre endurance ride in their division, and Lewis returned home to Wagga with one of the coveted buckles she went over there to claim. She says while the trip took a lot of effort and organising, she loved the experience and was stoked with the result.

"The trip itself was really long, it took us two days to get over there," Lewis said yesterday while enjoying the last of her school holidays...

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