Her inspiring story
Watching Sue-ellen Lovett move about her kitchen there’s nothing out of the ordinary as she reaches for cups, boils the jug or goes straight to the fridge for milk but as she’s about to pour the water, she hesitates to ask if you can tell her when to stop and that’s the clue she’s blind. A lack of sight has rarely been a hindrance but her vision, however, now that does get in the way because what Sue-ellen expects to be able to do, despite her blindness, is whatever she feels she can do and that’s included representing Australia in the paralympics or riding horses more than 16,000 kilometres to raise money for Guide Dogs NSW.
I’VE got one more level to go to Grand Prix. That’s my goal to be the only blind rider to ride at the Grand Prix level in the world. I’ve got a really cool coach down at Somersby and I go down once a month and spend three sometimes four days down there and train, on my beautiful ponies.
I’m not trying for Rio at all, if I want to stay married. Look I’ve done the paralympic thing, I was ranked fourth in the world, I’ve got a bronze medal; nah, been there done that. I would rather be doing it with my peers.
The coolest thing is see me ride, and I look like I’m normal, the only thing is I need to have people standing at the letters and they call me to the letters and I ride, and I count the strides and I do my movements. So I ride into an arena which is just all dark, and out of the fog I hear people calling, “C. C. C,” and I ride to the letter and then I count my fourteen strides in to the person who’s calling C and I hold, salute, then M starts calling, then K.
I have to listen, like if you close your eyes and I’m speaking over here. If you had to walk to my voice with your eyes closed, you would turn your head and you’d focus on the voice and you’d walk to the voice. That’s how I do it.
You must be incredibly brave?
Nope, scared shitless to be brutally honest. Sometimes very scared and it’s really important that when I ride, I’m not scared or anxious because Desiderata picks up on that. He’s a mirror image of what I’m feeling. If I’m feeling chilled, happy, Des is chilled, happy but if I’m stressed, Dessy’s stressed. It’s like he’s thinking, “why are you worried? What are you worried about? Should I be worried?”
Is that bond unique?
It’s the same for everybody. Animals are used alot in psychology, bringing people back say after post traumatic syndrome after war, they use dogs and horses. Horses are a little different to dogs. Dogs will love you unconditionally whereas if you hurt a horse, they remember and they’re cautious. If you approach them with anxiety, they’ve got anxiety. If you approach with soft body language, soft talking, they relate to that. They are really amazing.
Tell me about Desiderata?
It’s Latin for desire and his nickname is Daisy and that’s only because of my iphone calls. When I’m saying Dessy, it’s saying Daisy, so everyone keeps saying, ‘he’s not a Daisy!’. He’s 17 hands and an absolute ball of muscle, but he’s gorgeous. I’ve had Desiderata for two years and four months.
How do your dogs get on with your horses?
There’s a really cool video with my last guide dog on Sunrise, and that was with Prada (dog), Ko-olina (horse) and I at the Sydney CDI. Simon Reeves did it and it’s a tearjerker. I show that off when I do my public speaking and I’ve done hundreds of engagements and the tears still flow. Its stirring. Armani is my new guide dog and I’ve had her around four months now.
She’s learning about the horse and getting to know Desiderata. We haven’t done a lot of work with me leading her around the horse because of where I am with my eyes now where I can’t see anything,
it’s really important that it’s managed safely and so Armani won’t get a fright. Armani is bold, but there they’re really cute together, they sniff noses together.
How many dogs have you had?
Six. Prada is retired and lives in Mudgee. Prada retired a little earlier than normal, just ran out of steam. I move really quickly. In the middle of last year his eardrum busted, he got an infection and he never came back, was never as exuberant. He just seemed like a very old dog overnight. I suppose if you can’t hear properly it puts things a little off kilter. The eardrum healed but Prady just, he just retired.
How old were you when you got your first guide dog?
I’ve had a guide dog for 36 years, so I got my first dog in my twenties. If I’d go out on a date, the guy would always have to stand outside the toilet and wait for me, or I’d always be at someone’s... mercy’s not a good word, but mercy of someone good who’d take me shopping or whatever.
Now if I want to go shopping I organise a car or I can get a lift into town with Mathew, I can go shopping. Armani and I went shopping the other day and I bought a jacket, and then next week, I’ll go and get a haircut. So I can do it all by myself.
If I get a phone call and someone asks me to do a speaking engagement at the Gold Coast I can jump on a plane here and go off to the Gold Coast, do my speaking engagement and I can do it by myself.
It must be liberating?
I can’t imagine my life without a guide dog for a simple reason. I love the sanctuary out here (Narromine Road), it’ re-
They asked some really cool questions, they were engaging. They wanted to know what it was like going blind and I said do you want the sugar coated version or the honest. Ok, it’s bitch, it’s hard, it’s scarey. Do I cry? Yes. Do I get frustrated? Yes.
ally safe and quiet. I love quiet. The morning’s are my horse time and it’s just really a nice feeling to do that but also it’s a nice feeling that if I’d like to, I can go and do other stuff with Armani and I don’t have to get Mathew to take me, and it’s easy.
You’re not using people all the time to do stuff. When I ride, I have to have eight people there to call the letters. So we generally take a team of four with us and then we go round and get other people to call letters but they have to spend 20 minutes with my team getting a debrief, how to do it, when to do it, what to watch for. I spend a great deal of time mentally plotting and planning.
Tell me about your visit to the Juvenile Justice Centre?
One of the most amazing things I’ve done this year was I went and spoke at the Juvenile Justice Centre. Man of man, those boys were such a delight. The first group when they came gave me the wet fish handshake and I sat down opposite them. It was a chat, not a lecture or anything. As you can tell, I’m pretty shy, so I said, OK, tell me what you know about Guide Dogs. So they’d done a whole heap of research on Guide Dogs and on me, well their teachers had because they’re not allowed on the Internet obviously.
They asked some really cool questions, they were engaging. They wanted to know what it was like going blind and I said do you want the sugar coated version or the honest. Ok, it’s bitch, it’s hard, it’s scarey. Do I cry? Yes. Do I get frustrated? Yes.
But I also said, with what I’ve been given, I didn’t have a choice. My mother’s also totally blind. What I have is hereditary. So, I said to the guys, you know, I haven’t got a choice with going blind, but you’ve got a choice with where you’ve ended up and what would you like to do with your lives? The next time I go back, the guys are going to tell me what their goals are and what they aspire to do.
This broke me up. The teacher said to me, Michael has done a painting of you, your guide dog and your horse. Oh, tears, I could just feel them. And this beautiful young man came over and he sat this painting in my lap, and he got my finger and he traced over the horses’ head, and where the guide dog was. (laughs). Oh, tissues!!!
All I could say was thank, and I said could I have a hug, and he gave me the most beautiful hug and he meant it. The sincerity in that first group of boys was absolutely amazing. Their interest in how the guide dog worked but their interest in how I coped, what made me tick, how you got over adversity, what drove me.
I said to them, well, if I have to put up with this bitch of a thing, it’s going to work for me. It’s not getting a free ride. So hence, I’ve done three long distance rides, and raised $3.1 million for charities, Australia Day Ambassador. I think it’s so important for people to see ability not disability.
Just I don’t want someone to see someone who’s just sitting around twiddling their thumbs. I want to know when I leave this world, I’ve made a difference.
I spoke at a big function in Melbourne in one of the big motels down there for International Women’s Day and I was talking about one thing or another, and I just happened to mention I’d been married three times. We had a Q&A session and one of the ladies put her hand up and said: “Do you think your relationship with your animals is better than your relationships with your husbands?” (laughs). I said well maybe that was a good point!
I don’t take anything too seriously. Life’s too short.
My horses are my reason for breathing.
Is that an Olympic torch? (on display in her loungeroom)
Yes, I carried that into Newcastle. That’s the Paraolympic torch. It’s really cool, I took that to the jail, and the boys absolutely loved it and I had my bronze medal around my neck and they had photographs taken with the torch and the medal. They thought that was super. Respect My Uniform, a Guide Dog awareness campaign calls on the community to resist patting or distracting working Guide Dogs. Sue-ellen is a spokesperson for the campaign. A recent survey found 89 per cent of Guide Dog handlers reported their Guide Dog had been distracted by members of the public in the past 12 months and the campaign seeks to remind the public that even a well-intentioned pat can create considerable risk, cause anxiety and even serious injury for Guide Dogs and their handlers. Despite three decades of experience as a Guide Dog handler, Sue-ellen experiences the stress of Guide Dog distraction almost every time she leaves the house. In one particular incident, someone called out to her Guide Dog whilst she was leaving a function at the Opera House, causing her to lose her footing and nearly fall down the stairs.
I’ve had a guide dog for 36 years, so I got my first dog in my twenties. If I’d go out on a date, the guy would always have to stand outside the toilet and wait for me, or I’d always be at someone’s... mercy’s not a good word, but mercy of someone good who’d take me shopping or whatever.