Equestrian: Gutsy athlete pushes past pain to be best

Rachel Stock with Donnergrollen Photo / Steven McNicholl

Rachel Stock's passion for horses began at an early age.

She was the girl who sneaked out of the family home in Kumeu to ride a neighbour's pony "out the back of nowhere" and worked in a local bakery at every opportunity to raise the money to buy her first horse.

That sheer delight at being an equestrian remains strong, and even the pain of a degenerative bone disease won't stand in her way of trying to qualify for next year's Paralympics in London.

Stock, 40, will ride her chestnut gelding Donnergrollen at the Horse of the Year Show in Hastings tomorrow, intending to add to a 100 per cent winning record this summer and enhance her prospects of being the first New Zealander since Jayne Craike in 2000 to contest the Paralympic equestrian event.

She did three-day eventing before a series of tumbles changed her equine tack. She entered horses at AMP-type shows but as the pain increased turned to dressage.

"Because of my bone disease, I have a really bad habit of breaking my back when I fall off," Stock said.

"The way I fall it's always my back that takes the impact rather than busting anything else. That soon wore thin after the fifth fracture."

The first, and worst, of five breakages came in 1993 when she suffered three fractures in a three-day event in Taupo.

"I was told that was absolutely the end of doing any riding. I had to stop. I took that to mean don't [show] jump," she laughed.

"Stopping was like stop breathing. That's not going to happen."

Each time Stock, who has no cartilage in both hips, knees, hands and shoulders, gets into the saddle, it takes a few minutes to warm her body up. It can be agonising.

Then once she stops the body curls up. Some days it is too much of a struggle, but Stock says that only makes it more of a battle to get up and going again.

"I know if I stop I'll grind to a halt," she said.

"It's actually agony every day in the saddle to start with because the body, when you're not doing anything, basically contracts," she said.

A dressage test lasts eight and a half minutes, which is more manageable than other disciplines in terms of saddle time.

With Donnergrollen, they have formed a highly successful partnership, winning the Auckland and North Island championship and reserve competitions, the South Island champs and, last month in Christchurch, the New Zealand title.

The international Paralympic qualifying requirement is a 60 per cent test, which is a system used to mark dressage performances.

Donnergrollen has exceeded that in every event this season, so the prospects for Stock are bright.

Stock, who has lived with her daughters Chelsea and Caitlin near Pokeno for the last nine years, will attempt to qualify for London at an event in Werribee, near Melbourne in December.

This is the first year the paralympic event is part of the Horse of the Year Show. There are 11 entries in the dressage discipline in Hastings. Stock will contest both the freestyle and championship tests.

Stock, who uses crutches much of the time, is hoping to be able to have a crack at the world games in France in 2014.

Time is not necessarily on her side, so these are precious years for a sportswoman with ambition, guts and a fierce desire to reach for the top.