Kalahari Bulletin’s 2019 Supersport Let’s Play Sport Star can’t wait to get back in the saddle.
This year was meant to be the pinnacle of Jessi Wessels’s schooling sports career. Even though the saddlebred season came to an unprecedented halt because of the Covid-19 pandemic, this Upington High School matriculant still has the hunger to compete in saddle seat horse-riding.
While there were no horse-riding opportunities during the lockdown, she worked hard at remaining healthy.
Like many matriculants she will focus on her academics so that she can start competing at university.
Jessi hopes to attend Stellenbosch University to pursue a degree in accounting and at the same time take her place in an arena.
Throughout her schooling career she has obtained various achievements locally, nationally as well as internationally.
Kalahari Bulletin crowned Jessi Sports Star of the Year because of her versatility and achievements in saddle seat horse-riding, netball, tennis and swimming.
She was selected for the Junior Protea Five-Gaited Team last year and has been awarded with provincial colours in saddle seat horse-riding since 2017. She has also received provincial colours in swimming of her school for 2019 and has been receiving provincial colours in swimming since 2013. She has also been on her school’s first tennis team since 2016 and last year joined the school’s first netball team.
She participated in the International Saddle Seat Competition in New Orleans in the USA in July this year, where she placed tenth on the first day and first on the second day.
