Team GBR

Para-equestrian dressage rider Anna Gill from High Wycombe is looking forward to the start of the new season after the arrival of her new horse Kermit.

Anna (16), a successful para-equestrian dressage rider, is on the British Equestrian Federation’s UK Sport funded World Class Development Programme - which works with talented riders to maximize their potential and deliver success.

Her new horse, competition name Broadstone Central Park, was chosen to help strengthen Anna’s chances of success in the future.  The bay twelve-year-old Hanoverian gelding has so far competed at Advance Medium level with able bodied riders – Anna is his first para-equestrian rider. Kermit is owned by Mrs Sam Page and is currently being kept at South Bucks RDA where Anna rides him twice a week. 

Anna suffers from cerebral palsy which affects her balance and makes her left side very weak. She rides using one hand and no stirrups. 

“I have only been riding Kermit for about two months but already I feel like we’ve established a good relationship and I’ve got high hopes for him in the future,” said Anna.  “Even though he’s only been an able bodied ride so far, he responds very well to me and I’m delighted with how everything is going. We are looking to start competing at the end of the month and I’m excited about the season ahead.

The World Class Programme incorporates the three Olympic sports of dressage, eventing, show jumping and the Paralympic sport of para-equestrian dressage. It comprises the Performance and Development programmes plus the Equine Pathway. 

The aim of the Programme is to have in place a sustainable system that can deliver more medals on the international stage now and in the future. The Programme has been funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, through Exchequer and National Lottery funds, via UK Sport since 1998.