Kapiti Vaulters are living their dream

Kapiti Vaulters are living their dream to compete at World Champs

Four students from Kapiti College, two from Paraparaumu College, one from Te Horo School, and one from Raumati South School will be living their dream to represent New Zealand this year in their sport of Equestrian Vaulting.

The students make up the 8 member New Zealand Vaulting team training at the Kapiti Vaulting Club under their coaches Catarina Strom, Verena Fiess, and Maribel Oschkenat who are internationally experienced in the sport. The team will be making New Zealand's debut at the FEI Vaulting World Championships for Juniors from 24 - 27th July in Ermelo, The Netherlands.

Vaulting is commonly described as gymnastics on horseback. It has a similar level of extreme physical effort with an added challenge of balancing on a cantering horse, controlled by a lunger, and moving in a circle of at least 15 metres diameter. In recent years the sport has developed into a theatrical spectacle with difficult manoeuvres executed harmoniously to the stride of their horse and seamless choreography integrated to the flow of their music. In a team event, up to three vaulters can be on the horse at once. Vaulting has been a popular sport in Europe for decades and it is spreading around the world, with teams also expected to represent Australia, USA, Canada, South Africa, Colombia, and other nations where the sport is building momentum. Nations outside of Europe typically borrow horses from local vaulting clubs in order to compete at the European competitions. The New Zealand team will be departing New Zealand on June 10th to train for 7 weeks beforehand to familiarise themselves with a new horse from a club in Germany where their coaches have strong associations as their home vaulting clubs.

The New Zealand Team consists of:

Lily COLLETTE (15)
Summer GALWAY (15)
Danielle SCHWABE (16)
Matisse BERTELSEN (15)
Teagan MCCAUGHEY (12)
Zoya GILBERT-BUKH (11)
Jasmyn RODRIGUEZ (15)
Miriam BRIGHT (18)\
accompanied by team manager Kelvin McCaughey.

You can follow the girls' journey on their Instagram page (@nzvaulters) and on the club Facebook page (@KapitiEquestrian). The competition will be screened live on www.vaulting2019.com. For more information about the team, their fundraising, and their build up to this world level event see kapitiequestrian.com.
The team would like to thank major sponsor Mills Albert Ltd and ongoing club support from Dunstan Horse Feeds and The Achievement Room as well as all of the contributors to their fundraising effort.

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