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| Turning out horses for film shoot September 2016 |
My name is Chelsea Hassel and I’m from Cork and I’m 19 years old. I’ve been riding Horses since I was a baby. I did everything from pony club to hunting and only got into riding racehorses two years ago when I got a job with a small local trainer. I was thrown up on everything and just told to “get on with it” so I never really learned properly how to ride racehorses. The season before I came to RACE I was riding in Liam Burkes when I wasn’t at school (which was a lot) and I learned a lot from being there, which was something that did not happen the previous year. Although I didn’t ride much in Liam’s, I really started to love the industry and it was there that I heard about RACE.
When I came to RACE I wasn’t really too sure what to expect but I thought it would be physically tough and now that I’ve been here so long and gotten fitter, it’s not bad at all! Afternoon classes are a pain and so are the fitness tests but I can honestly say I’ve had the best laugh with the most amazing bunch of people and thinking back on how I used to ride, I only laugh now!. RACE really isn’t what I expected as I didn’t think I’d have as much of a laugh as I have had the past few months.
I haven’t been placed out on a yard yet but I’ve been told that I will be out within the next week so I’m excited to find out where I’ll go although I’ll miss the laugh I have with Instructor, Niall down the barn.
I don’t really know what my plans are for the future because at the beginning I just wanted to learn properly how to ride racehorses, so I could get into yards and not have trainers turning me down because of my age and gender, but the more I stay here the more my plans change. I’m hoping to get into a good yard and maybe stay as a senior and hopefully then I’ll get my National Hunt licence.
Chelsea was placed with James Nash on the 13th of February 2017
