SAMANTHA FELTON - NZ EVENTER
Sam is a self-employed businesswoman and full time sportsperson… who also happens to be my sister!
Long gone are the days of running around the house chasing fairies, and playing Pokemon (oh wait no that still happens), my older sister Sam is now firmly chasing some pretty big goals with her sport and making every day count. Sam is a full time Eventer, a discipline of Equestrian which sees horse and rider combinations completing three tests: dressage, show-jumping and cross-country.
Sam has always been really sure and decisive in the direction of her life – almost 16 years ago she decided she wanted to be an 'eventer' and her passion for the sport has never waivered once despite some nasty injuries which would deter most people (broken pelvis is all I'll say...).
She’s been smart about the decision to ride her horses full time; she attended Waikato University and holds a Bachelor of Business Management degree with first class honours in Strategic Management and Finance – she’s one smart cookie! Having worked for a local innovation company part time for a number of years so that she could work and ride, she decided it was time to make the leap into full time self-employment.
I look up to Sam because she’s not only training for her sport full time, but she’s also running a fully functional business around her passion of eventing in order to fund her sporting endeavors and her dreams. Not many athletes are actually sustainably making money from their sport, they’re simply relying on their sporting bodies for funding, so I think it’s pretty incredible that Sam is holding her passion for eventing central to her life, and making it work!
In order to run her team of around 10 horses, Sam trains other clients horses, gives riding lessons on a daily basis, takes on ‘project’ horses which she trains up and sells to make a profit, runs 'pony camps' for kids, and engages a team of sponsors and owners who help her make the dream possible.
With her clients horses included, Sam is riding and looking after around 20 horses. There’s only so much one person can do in a day, and even with Sam’s amazing time management skills she can’t get through it all, so she's enlisted the help of two ‘working pupils’ who live at the property full time.
At some stage Sam is going to have to pack up her life, horses and all, and ship over to the Northern hemisphere to continue pursuing her dreams. In New Zealand we don’t have any events at the top level in the world so it’s not viable to campaign for the Olympics from here. Sometime in the next two years, Sam will make the move to Europe where there are a number of events at 4* level.
I might be a bit biased but I think what she’s doing is bloody impressive. Follow Sam on Facebook, and check out her website here.
I caught up with Sam while she was holding one of her 'Fiber Fresh Pony Camps' and had a chat:
