Equestrian hall of fame: Kallista Field, ‘I’m really lucky’

Kallista Field (right) with Equestrian Sports New Zealand board chair Lynda Clark at the presentation inducting her into the Equestrian Sports New Zealand Hall of Fame.

Kallista Field is modest about her achievements.

At 22, she became New Zealand’s first Olympian in dressage and is now one of the latest inductees into the 2024 Equestrian Sports New Zealand Hall of Fame.

The Pahīatua resident says while it’s wonderful to have been chosen, she gives full credit to her parents who paid for her training.

“It cost a fortune to learn what I’ve learned,” she says, adding that she’s had one of the best trainers in the world.

She feels that it’s more that she has always been “in the right place” especially having done the World Championships and the Olympics, but it’s been those working behind the scenes who have put her there.

“I was just the person at the top but there were a whole lot of people behind it.”

Kallista believes she might be the youngest inductee, joining other well-known equestrians who include eventers Sir Mark Todd and Blyth Tait and another new inductee, showjumper Maurice Beatson from Dannevirke.

“I’m really lucky,” she says, but it’s luck that she believes comes from hard work. “The harder you work, the luckier you get.”

Kallista Field at a dressage event in 2008.

Kallista started in equestrian sports at a young age, something she also credits her mum, Sharon, for.

She says her mum should have been in the Hall of Fame long before her, having won Pony of the Year - the top showjumping award - and the Dorothy Campbell trophy, which is the top eventing award for under-18, in the same year.

“No one else has ever done it.”

Her parents were living in Melbourne, Australia when her father was offered a job with Mills Bros, which her grandfather started, in Pahīatua.

“Mum had no intention of coming back to Pahīatua.”

Kallista says her dad decided to give it a year and if either one of them didn’t like it, they would move back to Australia.

But then the couple had their two daughters.

A few years later, Kallista’s mum “got bored” and decided to buy a horse named Silver Fern from a trainer in Woodville – Eric Ropiha, who was considered an icon in the sport.

Sharon would go on to train the horse to Grand Prix level and the pair would go on to be in the first New Zealand team to represent the country in Australia.

She would later train another horse, Mosaic, which went on to represent Australia in the Atlanta Olympics in 1996.

“She’s done all these firsts, and they didn’t make it easy for you,” Kallista says.

She feels lucky that her parents, as well as her trainer, have taught her to always do her own thing.

That has been a big part of Kallista’s success in dressage and it’s taken her all around the world.

She says when she first left Pahīatua, she took a picture of the main street and said “I’m never coming back”.

“The more I went away, the more I couldn’t wait to come back.”

She now has a rural property just out of Pahīatua with her husband and daughter and teaches riding.

Kallista says she’s learned a lot from her sport, and from her horses.

“One thing I’ve learnt from horses is that they’re like people. I never trust someone that can’t look me in the eye. I’d never buy a horse that hasn’t got a kind eye. Because that’s their soul. That’s their personality.

“As I’ve got older, I’ve learnt so much from horses about people.”