Majestic Hunter | Astro Rocket Launches into Show Jumping
Victorian bred gelding, Majestic Hunter, began his racing career in late 2019. By Skilled and out a mare by the name of China Aster, Majestic Hunter trialed three times with successful placings before his first official racing start.
Trained by Rhys Radford, Majestic Hunter raced twice throughout his career before he retired in December of 2019, three months after his first trial.
Following this retirement, Majestic Hunter was rehomed to Julie Mounsey. While with Julie, Astro’ babysat foals during his let down from racing. This allowed his mind and body to reset in preparation for starting an off the track career.
In 2023, Julie placed Astro up for sale which led to his introduction to Sienna Owen. Sienna was looking for something to continue her show jumping aspirations with after having her confidence knocked by a previous horse.
Despite not being in the market for a thoroughbred, Astro won Sienna over.
“His calm nature and personality really stood out, so we decided to bring the green four-year-old home.”
“My last horse was quite scared to jump fill so when we went to view Astro, we brought along some vibrant, funky-looking poles and fillers to see how he would react. Despite having never seen a jump before, he popped over them with little hesitation.”
This was the beginning of Astro and Sienna partnership. Both green, they developed together slowly but surely. Now, Sienna competes Astro up to 105cm and is incredibly proud of their progress.
“It’s so hard to pick just one of my accomplishments, but the biggest with Astro so far has been winning the Combined Training 100cm and the 90cm AM7 at the PCWA State Jumping Championships earlier this year. We also won Best Performed Off the Track Horse at Albany Pony Club’s Show Jumping Festival in the 105cm.”
Currently, Sienna is focusing on dressage with Astro and hopes to compete in Elementary tests later this year. Long term, Sienna will continue to work on their show jumping with goals of maintaining consistency at 115cm.
“I’m excited to see how far we can go together as a team!”
