Fairholme College Year 12 student Georgia Pitman has not only carved out a place in the primarily male dominated domain of competitive whip cracking, she’s excelling at it.
Coming from a small cattle property in Moree, New South Wales, Georgia became interested in whip cracking from at age 11 when a family from Gunnedah came to the Moree Show and taught Georgia and her younger brother how to do it.
“We went to a few country shows with them and did some demonstrations as also taught other people (mainly children) how to crack a whip,” she said.
Within just three months after picking up a whip for the first time Georgia started entering a few competitions and said the atmosphere really appeals to her.
“All the people are so nice and happy to have another family join the association.”
“I’m 17 now so I’ve been doing it for about five or six years I started off as the Australian Juvenile Champion and won that title a few times then stepped up into the Junior section.”
Georgia said when she moved up into the Junior group, the difficulty also stepped up.
“I was competing against 17 year old boys and so had to get up to a good enough level to be able to compete at that difficulty.”
But rise to the challenge Georgia has, with her being named the NSW Junior Champion at the Deniliquin Ute Muster and last year becoming the Australian Junior Champion at the Sydney Royal Easter Show.
It’s a bit of a different thing to do – you don’t hear of too many female whip crackers.”
She said it took her a while to learn how to use the whips and not hit herself in the process.
“I do remember coming back inside once with stripes all up the back of my legs, it was a bad decision to wear shorts.
“I’m always practicing, learning new routines and creating some of my own.”
Now whipping through her senior year Fairholme, Georgia said she really enjoys maths and science and her future ambition is to complete a degree in medicine and pursue a career in that field.
