Brea Walker

How I landed my role at Team Collett and an insight into what inspired my move back to NZ.

I think everyone can relate when I say that Covid made me really reassess life plans and goals. I always knew I wanted to be a top-level rider and to do that I needed to end up back in the UK to learn at some stage but with covid putting a serious stop to my original plans to head back in 2020, I felt very stuck. I live for learning and progress always pushing for that extra 1% every day for overall gain, but with lockdown after lockdown in Auckland I honestly just felt like I was back peddling.

While on our annual family holiday last year in January to Waihi Beach I was aimlessly scrolling Facebook when a Work Rider job for Laura Collett Eventing popped up. DREAM JOB. That was the moment everything changed for me. I decided sitting around waiting for another lockdown was not going to get me out of the rut I was in anytime soon. I had to make some big changes for myself! I quickly put together my CV and sent it off to Laura, this was the start of the best year of my life.

I arrived at Laura’s yard in Cheltenham, England a few weeks later in one of the biggest storms Gloucestershire (I still can’t spell this without help!) had seen in 30 years – bit of a shock to the system when only a few weeks before I was boogie boarding in the baking sun in NZ! I met the team, spent my first few days hanging over the toilet seat and crying on the phone to mum (I had glutened myself on Day 1 – being a Coeliac and travelling is not easy). I fell off on my first day at work as I just had absolutely nothing left to give after being so unwell. To say I was utterly distraught that my biggest idol just watched me fall off is a total understatement.

The rest was history. The best months FLEW by with Laura’s Badminton win, lessons with Yogi Breisner, riding quality horses and rubbing shoulders with the best in the world. It really was the best thing for me. Inspired to say the least which is ironically what sparked my move home in mid-November.

Being back in that high performance environment (something I had craved since working for Sir Mark Todd back in 2019), made me hungry to get back into training for myself. I’d found my spark again and some clarity around what I wanted in the future, now striving to achieve some pretty big goals! Surrounded by world class riders, horses and facilities you really do question whether you will ever be able to pull off something similar in little NZ. But I’ve never let this stop me before and decided I had to make the brave decision to move home and try! After a discussion with Laura it became clear that although this was an extremely hard decision, it was the right timing for the goals I wanted to achieve moving forward. She explained that had taught me all she could in my work role without my own horse there to get out competing. Without a doubt the hardest goodbye!

Little did I know what the next 6 months would have in store… more to come.

Brea x