MEGAN GREGORY: You’re on a big strong animal and they can throw you off whenever they want.
MEGAN GREGORY: I think it's quite a big achievement for someone half the size of an average person to
get on a horse and just go.
MEGAN GREGORY: I have achondroplasia. So it affects my arms, my long bones don’t grow and I have tripod
fingers and so all my fingers are the same length. And I have frontal bossing on the top of my head.
MEGAN GREGORY: Dwarfism has impacted me quite a lot and I had lots of pain in my legs and I still do in
my back and so it did affect me daily in doing physical activities.
KAREN GREGORY: I knew about a fortnight before I had Megan that she had a form of dwarfism and they actually
wanted to terminate her but I just couldn’t have anything done. I didn’t want a termination and fortunately
she wasn’t born with the worst form of dwarfism like they first thought.
She was born with achondroplasia which is the most common form.
MEGAN GREGORY: I don’t want be limited with like, the dwarfism. I always like to try and do things normal.
So I always find an alternative or a way around things. Like in the kitchen, I climb on the surfaces even though
my mom and dad hate it and they always tell me off.
MEGAN GREGORY: At school, it was quite hard because obviously bullying, people not very accepting.
When people take the mick out of me, they will either call me a midget, call me small, take photos. With bullying,
I did get quite depressed and so I found horse riding did help.
MEGAN GREGORY: Horses helped it. They helped me relieve it and my mind was on something else other than
my dwarfism. I felt that horse riding was always there. In this photo, you can see the height difference of me and
him. And I am about four foot, I don’t know how tall I am.
MEGAN GREGORY: The most I love about horse riding is probably the relationship between the horse and the rider,
and relationships with horses don’t just click. You have to build the bond.
MEGAN GREGORY: Pandora is a rescue horse, she’s quite old. I have dwarfism, I have only been riding for
about five years now because they have come from bad backgrounds and everything. So have I, like school and
bullying. They have had to learn to trust someone, and obviously I’ve had to learn to trust people as well and I
just feel like we assemble against that. We are going to go to the rescue centre that rescued Pandora.
They are holding this show and to raise funds to rescue.
MEGAN GREGORY: When I do horse ride, my legs are in a lot less pain and because of the posture I’m sitting on the
horse. I have fallen off too many times to count. I’ve had quite bad falls on horses, especially at competitions.
I’m a bit like “But what if, what if this happens? What if this goes wrong?” But I know that I have to stay relaxed
and calm but I do sometimes get nervous, but I try not let it bother me.
KAREN GREGORY: Everyone always says, you know, she has got so much guts and she really, really has.
She is very brave.
KAREN GREGORY: To see her competing against other people who have probably been riding for most of their
lives, much older, more experience, horses that cost thousands of pounds. And there is Megan with a
disability, she is riding her horse that is 25, Pandora is a rescue horse. I am just so happy that they found each
other because I think they have both helped each other and Megan is in a different world
when she is around horses.
MEGAN GREGORY: When I go out horse riding, to competitions, I am quite competitive.
I do obviously like to bring the rosettes home.
GRAHAM GREGORY: She is just a small person, otherwise she is perfect in every way.
But you can't call being small not perfect because I think she is great.
GRAHAM GREGORY: She’s always found a way around everything and including horse riding.
MEGAN GREGORY: I have got roughly about 46 rosettes. I have got medals as well. I say I am always going for the
first and the second rosettes, but I don’t mind because I know that I'm just going out to compete and obviously
there is always going to be someone out there bigger and better than you and that have got the more
expensive horses. And I still am very, very lucky because I have a lot of support behind me from my family as well
as my friends and I never thought that I would be able to do something as amazing as horse riding.