Olivia Flick made her first trip to the Royal Horse Show one she won’t soon forget, ending a banner 2025 season by bringing home Champion and Reserve Champion in the Horse Sport Children’s Working Hunter division aboard True North and Tweety Bird, respectively. It was the storybook ending to a fairytale year, as the 14-year-old also finished the 2025 season as the OHJA Children’s Working Hunter Champion and OHJA high point horse with Tweety, owned by Jordana Polisuk, and OHJA Children’s Working Hunter Reserve Champion with Eddie. Olivia was also named a 2025 CAN Jump Initiative Bursary Recipient.
“I’m still in complete disbelief when I think about our season,” says the Burlington, ON, resident. “I’d always dreamed of being champion at the Royal and I hoped we’d be competitive, but I never thought we’d be champion and reserve. The Children’s division was very competitive this year and it was a big division with lovely horses and really talented riders.”
Olivia and True North (Eddie) with the Horse Sport Children’s Working Hunter championship plate. (Apple Photos)
Olivia was born into a riding family – she grew up on a horse farm in Nova Scotia and began riding almost as soon as she could walk. Her mom, Lisa Van Zoost, rode competitively and her ‘Oma and Opa’ bred warmbloods. She was always around the horses, but began to show serious interest when she was eight years old and got her first pony, Glamour Girl. The pair competed in the short stirrup division and after a short progression through the pony ranks, Olivia began training with Whitney Gibson in 2023.
Quickly realizing that due to her height – 5’9” – her days in the pony ring were numbered, Gibson and the family began their search for Olivia’s first horse. In January of 2024, Olivia and her mom travelled to Ocala with Gibson in search of her next partner. They looked at over 20 horses, but Olivia knew from the moment she sat on Eddie that their partnership would be special.
“The trainer said he had one more young gelding that was fancy but green, which wasn’t what we were looking for, but we all saw the potential in him right away,” remembers Olivia. “I fell in love with him after my first lap around the ring. I said to my mom “I LOVE HIM” and she told me to put aside how cute he is and how well he moves, but I reminded her that she’d told me that I would know it when I felt it.” Eddie came home with them from Florida and was campaigned by Gibson in the pre-greens while Olivia learned the ropes in the low children’s ranks. They ended their first season as OHJA Low Children’s Medal Finals and Low Children’s Hunter Champions.
Despite her success throughout the season, Olivia says she didn’t put pressure on herself to do well her first time at the Royal, focusing instead on enjoying the experience. “For the most part, I don’t usually get nervous when I show,” she says. “I seem to be able to stay in the moment and carry on if I make a mistake.
“Whitney says I have nerves of steel, but at the Royal I was a little nervous because the Coliseum felt so big and magical. Tweety had been there before in the adults with his owner and he knows when the classes are important, so I was pretty confident on him. Eddie doesn’t care about anything, so we figured he would take it all in stride. I think he knew it was a special show and I could feel he was a bit jazzed up. We had seven horses from Whitney Gibson Stables qualify for the Royal this year and it was so fun to go as a team.”
Campaigning two top contenders in the same division comes with its own challenges, not least of which is deciding who to jog in for ribbons. “Most of the season I preferred to compete on Tweety first, early in the class, and then Eddie towards the end. The results flip-flopped back and forth between the two of them throughout the season. There were three occasions when one of them was champion and the other reserve champion.”
She noted that there did seem to be a good-natured rivalry between the stable mates. “I do think they are competitive with each other – Eddie would always show off in the hack and Tweety loved the classics. We always wished we knew what they were saying to each other. I would have been happy to win on either of them, and I’m very happy that they both had shining moments, but I think it turned out exactly the way I’d secretly hoped.”
With all her successes in the ring, Olivia says she believes her proudest moment of the year to be the development of her partnership with Eddie. “I needed to learn that less is more and to not get in his way way,” she says. “Whitney always tells me to ‘leave him alone and just let him canter.’ I remember when it all finally clicked and I had happy tears. To then to go to the Royal and lay down three great trips on both Eddie and Tweety was the perfect ending.
“I am also grateful to Karson O’Connor for hacking Tweety so brilliantly all year and to all the riders who hopped on when Karson wasn’t available, and to the whole team at Whitney Gibson Stables. I feel very fortunate to be part of this stable. It truly takes a wonderful team to create success and I am very grateful to have the support I do.”
For the 2026 season Olivia will once again campaign Tweety in the Children’s Hunters, as Eddie was sold shortly after the Royal. “Tweety is such a great teacher. I’m excited to do more medals and derbies with him, and I look forward to developing my skills on him.
“Unfortunately, the Royal was my last show on Eddie, as he is on the smaller side and I just keep growing!” said the teen who also plays competitive volleyball. “I wish I could keep him forever, but being Canadian Champion at the Royal was the fairytale ending to an unbelievable year and the perfect last chapter to our time together.”
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