Anele Ferreira, the newly-crowned South African pony rider showjumping champion at 1.10m, possesses a quiet but graceful style that even caught her trainer-father off guard once.
About a year ago she was riding on the family farm at Howick by herself one day while her parents, sitting on the patio, spotted her on the other side of the dam.
Dad Colin, a top show-jumper in his day, was so impressed by what he saw he turned to Deirdre and asked who the rider was.
“Your daughter,” she replied.
“Him being an instructor, you’re always so close and you sort of see the faults and you’re drilling them and you’re not sort of, standing back and looking from a distance,” explained Deirdre, a rider in her day too.
“When he was across the dam, he was like, ‘Wow, you know, that kid rides really well.’”
The irony is that Anele looks similar to Colin. “She’s very stylish, she’s not an untidy rider, she’s very correct, she’s very neat, but that’s her father’s doing. He’s quite strict on her, but she loves it.”
Anele, 13, was competing at 1.10m for only the third time at Kyalami at the weekend, but she produced two fault-free rounds to beat off some competitors three years older. She took a second gold at the competition after two more flawless performances in the team event for a combined KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape.
I probably ride about two hours a day, just to keep the horse fit. I ride every day after school and on weekends I do outrides, just flat work. Sometimes I just do fun things, we swim in the dam. We do cross country jumps, which is out in open fields and jumping logs and bushes.
— Anele Ferreira
Anele, who started riding around six and began competing around eight, plays hockey and soccer at school and also competes in cross-country and swimming.
But riding ranks highest for her.
“I probably ride about two hours a day, just to keep the horse fit. I ride every day after school and on weekends I do outrides, just flat work.
“Sometimes I just do fun things, we swim in the dam. We do cross country jumps, which is out in open fields and jumping logs and bushes,” added the grade 7 pupil, who would one day like to compete at the Nation’s Cup tournament, one of the sport’s top competitions on the international circuit.
Anele, the second-youngest of six children, was adopted as an infant.
“I heard about this young woman that was looking for someone for her baby because she was very young and very poor and I went to go and see her,” Deirdre recounted.
“She said to me she’s got this beautiful little girl, but she’s just not in a position to be able to financially afford her. We just saw her and we just fell in love with her and said, ‘oh, no, we have to have this baby as our own’.”
Deirdre said part of Anele’s success as a rider stemmed from her ability to handle horses gently.
“She’s got a very good attitude,” said mom Deirdre. “She’s not a rider that bullies a pony, she’s a very kind rider.
“We found when she was much younger, when she had her other ponies, they could be quite naughty, horrible ponies with other children, but she’d get on and she’s got this whole like soft nature, kind way of riding, which makes the ponies seem to want to go for her.”
And when Anele goes into the competition arena, it’s simply about doing her best, not downing her rivals.
“She’s competitive [but] she’s never got a bad thing to say about anybody.”
Even at Kyalami this past weekend Anele focused only on herself. “She was just going out there to enjoy it and try her best.
“She’s doing it for the love of the sport.”
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