Anna started having a lesson once a fortnight at her local riding school aged nine, which lead to her becoming a helper. “It meant I got to ride lots of naughty ponies,” she says.
When she started to take her BHS exams, she came across Sue Payne, who suggested she go to Talland School of Equitation in Gloucestershire, where many top riders have started their careers. She was 22 when trainers Pammy Hutton and Adam Kemp spotted her talent. “I was working in a bar at the time in the evenings and riding during the day then Pammy and Adam offered me a scholarship.” After a couple of years, Anna returned to Hertforshire and started competing a large variety of riding school horses ranging from an Anglo-Arab to a Danish Warmblood stallion. She also trained a Cleveland Bay called Mr Bojangles up to Intermediaire I level.
It was while she was competing at Patchetts Equestrian Centre in Hertfordshire that she was approached to ride a horse that the centre’s owner, Donald McTaggart, had recently bought. It was a sharp four-year-old called Liebling II. The Holstein gelding made good progress and they ended up at their first international competition in 2003. The following year she won the Elementary Freestyle national championship and in 2005 she took the runner up slot in the Intermediate 1 National Championship and went on the win her first Grand Prix at National level.
Anna won her first international Grand Prix during the Spanish Sunshine tour riding Liebling, a horse she trained from four years old and they made their British Team debut at the Nations Cup in Saumur. She was picked as a reserve for the 2007 European Championships in Turin and less than 2 weeks before the competition she found out she was on the team and went on to achieve the highest British placing. She finished 10th in the freestyle and was the only British rider to reach the final stage of the competition.
In 2016, Anna and Die Callas won both the Grand Prix and the Grand Prix Special at the 2016 CDI Oliva Nova. In 2017 Anna has represented Great Britain at Hickstead as part of the CDI03* Nations Cup Team with Wydny.
2018 marked a huge change for Anna and her team as they made the move to Devon from Wiltshire. Having bought an equestrian centre Anna teaches a wide client base which includes coaching riders from her stables who competed at the Young Rider European Championships and the World Equestrian Games in Tryon in 2018.
Anna has an exciting young Grand Prix horse who will make his debut in 2019 as well as continuing to coach riders aiming for the Young Rider European Championships, Under 25 Grand Prix and the Pan American Games. From her new base she is also now heavily involved with breeding the next generation of dressage superstars with 20 foals born in 2018 and 26 foals due this year.