Aspiring young equestrian Isla Fotofili is quite surprised her path to the top of riding events has started at the top - on Australia's tallest horse.
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Former Olympian Vicki Roycroft now tutors Isla at Mt White, just north of Sydney, but the youngster journeyed south to meet again with her old favourite horse, a huge Shire horse called Stormy George.
Stormy George, aged eight, became the tallest horse in Australia at 19.1 hands after his cousin Luscombe Nodram (he was 20.2 hands) died recently aged 19 in Queensland. Stormy George was born on the shire stud run by Helene Scarf in Kangaroo Valley in the NSW Shoalhaven.
Isla first met Stormy five years ago when she was at Sydney Royal with her mum, Sally Edelman, also an equestrian.
There were incredible scenes as the huge head of Stormy George bent down to greet a young Isla, then aged nine.
"He just put his head down towards me and it was all just nice and sweet," Isla says. "I gave him some big hugs. When I got to ride him, it was like getting on an elephant."
So recently, Isla came back to ride Stormy George again as he gets prepared for a riding event at the 200th Sydney Royal.
Stormy George is being tutored by leading equestrian rider Scott Brodie, a long time friend of Helene Scarf who has been training her Shire horses for more than 20 years.
Scott jokes that his new hip replacement was partly caused trying to get his legs across the broad back of the Shire horses over the years.
"It's a bit like doing yoga up there," he says. He has to use a plastic stepping platform to get on Stormy George, while someone else pulls the saddle on the other side so he can get a purchase on the stirrup. He'll put Stormy through his paces before the show event - just as he would do for any other breed of horse.
His job is to get Stormy up to scratch after being in the paddock down at the stud at Kangaroo Valley.
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His large hooves, that require a massive 21-inch horse shoe that Helene gets specially made, have become split while spelling from his riding and show engagements and Stormy's walking a little gingerly on his front feet.
"Its going to be a little while before I get him right," Scott says. "But if anyone can do it, it's him. It'll be okay."
Brodie runs an elite equestrian school at Helensburgh and also managed the mounted NSW Police team at Surry Hills, Sydney.
He's been involved in horses for therapy for many years and also manages Racing NSW's Thoroughbred Retraining Program.
If he can turn a fierce thoroughbred track competitor into a horse that is as quite as a mouse to ride, Scott can get Stormy back on track.
Stormy has got so big over the years he outgrew everything, his float, his saddle. So items move along with him. He'll be ridden by Scott in the draught ridden class at the show.
"He's quite friendly, lovely to be around," Scott says. Helene calls Stormy a "real smoocher". The Shire breed almost died out in Australia until Helene imported some Shires - the first, Ladbrook Edward, in 1981.
"When Helene decided to get some shires she asked me to help train them. I went down to Kangaroo Valley and I was gobsmacked by this hidden valley where her stud is and then this huge horse came running up to me."
Surprisingly despite hitting close to 1000 kilograms, almost double a normal horse's weight, Stormy doesn't eat that much more than his fellow thoroughbred lodgers at Scott's Prestige Equestrian Training facility.
"They eat about 20 per cent of their body weight a day, they are very good doers, but Stormy eats as much as the other horses."
He said big horses tended to live longer.
One of Stormy's uncles Cedars Archibold lived until 28. Getting halters on such a large horse can be difficult, with a throat bit of the halter missing because it can't fit around Stormy's jaw.
But Scott explains the biggest challenge: "getting on's the hardest bit."
Scott says shoeing is a big thing for Shires and soon Stormy will have some new plates once his feet are better. Unusually the Shires have concave soles. He'll get the large 21-inch shoes. "It's a lot of steel," says Scott.
Stormy George was set to make his first public outing this year at the Kangaroo Valley Show [scheduled for this weekend February 11-12] but unfortunately that has been cancelled due to COVID concerns.
He was given the name Stormy as it was a stormy and wild night when he was born at The Cedars. But Stormy in temperament he is not, often quietly following around visitors to the stud. Helene says at age eight, Stormy has probably reached his full height.
Isla's hoping to see a bit more of Stormy at the show when she visits this Easter. She is on her own path to the show competition in equestrian events, training with her horse Tommy, a former racehorse known as Austin's Cane. He's really calmed down since his track life but suprisingly jumped a fence where he's kept in northern Sydney recently - so Tommy can jump !
Stormy though will be holding back from jumping. Most Shires can jump but Stormy hasn't been trained to do that.
No doubt his band of followers will be jumping if he wins his draught riding event at Sydney Royal.