Born in Ostend in 1974, the "horse-loving story" began at the age of 12 ... Mum took me horse-riding in a small club and within a week, I preferred spending my time around this magic animal, called "horse".

About one year later I helped training several racehorses. Due to my height, I was forced to look for another discipline and went showjumping...very quickly I understood that show jumping wasn't my passion and I decided to learn how to ride a dressage horse... From that day, I made up my mind and kept training. After many years of training and competing, a very bad accident happened while lunging one of my youngsters... Once in hospital doctors decided I had to spend the rest of my days in a wheelchair...

At that moment I had about 20 owned horses waiting for me to come out, terrible...I had to do something. Every single day I tried to walk and finally, I reached that first goal, walking. Indeed, a few weeks later I was walking again, but...this time on the back of my best friend called "Loutje". We kept training every day and very quickly I was used to riding with a whip (cause I lost the feeling in my left foot).

After let's say 6 months I decided to test myself on competition because riding just for fun without a target has never been my thing so...I took my chance and won! What a feeling. That's how I started to ride Paraequestrian competitions. A judge saw me riding and spoke to the National coach, who invited me to be classified. That year I started my first competition in Paraequestrian at the European Championships in Norway. The result was very positive, I came home with a silver medal.
One year later, I was selected to compete in Kentucky (USA) in de World Equestrian Games. I was very pleased with the result, I became Vice World Champion.

In 2011 I qualified for the European Championship in Belgium but unfortunately, my horse came home from a competition in France and was sick, so I couldn’t compete for a while. 

2012 was the year of the Paralympic Games in London. Fuchs gave the best of himself and showed me the way how to achieve two Gold medals! We even broke our own personal record, I couldn’t dare dream better than that.
Paralympic Champions are made in Belgium!

I just want to say to anyone reading this story, "the sky is the limit", never give up...after every down, there will be an up and ...just follow your dreams...!

Michèle.