F cu o on s Sonja Johnson Journey to Adelaide graft the skin, or the horrific freak fall at home that snapped her pelvis in 2012, which would have been a career changer for most people. However, through sheer determination, never taking her eye off her goal, and with a lot of help from her amazing parents and a broad group of close friends she has achieved her goals. S onja Johnson is a well known name in the world platform of eventing. She lists Olympic Silver Medalist and World Equestrian Games bronze medalist in her career highlights, and she runs a busy farm with parents, Dan and Phoebe, in Albany, WA. One can only begin to imagine the hours and miles involved in being part of elite squads, or trying to become part of elite squads and Australian teams, when based in Albany with a farm to run. Not to mention the financial costs. That doesn’t even take into consideration the inevitable injuries - the little finger that was nipped off by a young horse - that meant that her hand had to be stitched to her stomach for a couple of weeks to Sonja could justifiably call herself a ‘legend’ of eventing. Not that she would, but she could. And just because she is now a ‘celebrity’ doesn’t mean that life gets any easier. In fact it is just the opposite, as the recent ‘adventurous’ journey to Adelaide can attest to. Commitments at Equitana meant that Sonja needed to be in Sydney while she should be hauling horses across the Nullabor to Adelaide for the International 3DE. Sonja’s very successful young protegee, Jess Manson, and up and coming eventer, Michaela Martindale and her Mum, Irene, had organised to travel to Albany with their horses, Legal Star and Kinnordy Gatow to help Sonja’s grooms Georgia Brennan and Bec Blyth drive the horse truck to Adelaide, with theirs and Sonja’s two horses, Parkiarrup Illicit Liaison and Belfast Mojito. The truck was duly serviced, checked and OK’d before the journey. Jess’s car and float were to remain at the Albany farm but Irene was following in their car so they had transport once in Adelaide. It was all so carefully planned and organised! All went well until Esperence - only about 480km down the track - then the truck died! Repairs were going to take too long to enable the horses to arrive and settle in at Adelaide in acceptable time, so alternate arrangements were hurriedly put in place, with Sonja co-ordinating from Sydney. Bruce McWhirter, father of eventers Lewis and Scott, generously offered to ‘drop everthing right then and there’ and drive Greg Johnson’s (Europa Saddlery) polo horse truck to Esperence to meet the ‘girls’, load up and continue on to Adelaide. However, that truck also had a previously unseen random mechanical problem and it wasn’t sounding too reliable.