Mikayla Jones is the newest recruit to get signed off and tonight she will make her debut to race driving, a moment that has been years in the making. <\/p>\n
Jones, who felt the force pulling her towards horses as a teen made her way to the stables of Paula Petricevich, eventually learning the craft of driving and the rest was history, she was hooked. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt started when I started jumping the fence next door for my horse job to Paula Petricevichs stables, where I stayed for eight years.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore her, I didn\u2019t know anything about the trots, and over the years I started to get interested.<\/p>\n
\u201cSix years down the line I decided I could get into driving and once I had my track licence it was too much fun to not pursue it further.\u201d Mikayla Jones said<\/p>\n
Jones\u2019 introduction to horses began when she was 17, a fresh graduate from high school, she took up a live-in stable hand position at Christel Equine Park, conveniently located next door to Paula Petricevich\u2019s harness racing property. <\/p>\n
\u201c(I was) living for free in exchange of managing the 15 horses there.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy parents wanted nothing to do with me and my horse obsessions, so I made my own way forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t easy, but I\u2019m a firm believer that with God, anything is possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones made her trial debut on the 18th of August in 2024 at Byford on board Hi Tommy, finishing third in the trial. <\/p>\n
\u201cBriana Edman passed him on to us when she had gone through the school, so he then took me through the school. <\/p>\n
\u201cI broke him to saddle when he\u2019d done his job for me as a racehorse and passed him on to a beautiful adult rider in Pinjarra.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is now a very loved and spoilt pleasure horse sand was a true gem for every driver and handler. One in a million.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones now runs her own equine business by the name of MJ Equine Services, dedicated to helping people with their equine problems, competing, breaking in, teaching lessons, selling\/campaigning horses, groundwork and problem-solving horse issues. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s extremely rewarding work, many owners have no one to turn to and it\u2019s great to be there to help with them and their horses. <\/p>\n
\u201cI still drive trackwork at least twice a week for anyone who needs me, mainly Debbie Padberg, who has been instrumental also in helping me get started and giving me lots of trial drives on her horses.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was hard stepping away from working at Paula\u2019s for so long as she is such an amazing trainer and boss to work for, but this leap of faith has definitely been worth it and it\u2019s been a big blessing to have the freedom I do now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ashleigh Paikos\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mikayla Jones is the newest recruit to get signed off and tonight she will make her debut to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3004,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-170019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-racing","tag-racing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}