Tanesha Thompson has been involved in horses all her young life, but started working with the Kaimanawa horses in 2012 when her mother took on three mares and foals from the muster. Tanesha ‘stole’ one of the foals from the yards and trained her as her own. Then one of the mares, Rosie, took her eye! So, after Rosie had her initial handling and had the foal she was carrying, Tanesha took over her handling and started her under saddle. Despite Tanesha’s young age, the challenge of working with the wild horses had bitten her and she has handled Kaimanawa horses every muster since, taking Chester from the 2016 muster to Equidays as part of the 2016 Kaimanawa Stallion Challenge. Chester was a challenge and still is special to this day. But Tanesha managed to get him to Equidays under saddle and completed the competition on him. In 2019 Tanesha competed in the Stallion Challenge again. Karaka was Tanesha’s Stallion for the Challenge.  The combination went on to get Reserve Champion.

Tanesha tries to work with her horses as naturally as possible, riding her horses bitless and keeping them all barefoot. She has watched many different people working with horses and taken a little from each to make her own methods of training. But each horse is treated as an individual and each training session is different to suit.

I have taken on two stallions for the challenge this year. The first being Sargent Pepper who is 14.1hh and 2 years old and my 2nd is Major Tom who is 14.3hh and 3 years old. They were running in a small bachelor band of 3 in the wild so are best of friends. Sargent is loving this new way of life, food on tap and all the scratches he wants, while Major is a little unsure about it all.