EVER since she was young, Samara Johnson has had a knack with horses.

“I’ve been show jumping ever since I can remember, so working with and being around horses has always felt natural to me,” the 20-year-old amateur jockey and Thoroughbred Park track-work rider says.

This month Samara will go from the stables of Thoroughbred Park to Toulouse, France, to compete in the prestigious Her Highness Sheikha Fatima Bint Mubarak Ladies IFAHR (International Federation of Arabian Horse Racing) Cup, after she was picked to represent Australia.

Not bad for a girl from Murrumbateman who only started horse racing last June.

“It’s a huge honour to represent your country…I still can’t believe it actually,” she says.

“Before this, I had really only raced a few times in small country races, so it’s going to be very surreal racing in front of a huge crowd in France.”

Samara, who moved from Wagga Wagga to Murrumbateman two months ago, will compete against 12 amateur and professional female jockeys from around the globe in the prestigious 1600m race.

She is only the fifth Australian jockey to be picked by the Board of the National Arabian Racehorse Association to compete in the race, which carries $20,000 prize money.

Amateur jockeys are usually selected not just for their promising racing skills but for their ability to represent their country.

“There’ll be a World Arabian Racing Conference that will coincide with the race while we’re there, which will have many guests who are involved in the sport, so I think they wanted someone who could talk to people and present themselves well,” Samara says.

Arabian horse racing is still “relatively new” to Australians, despite being run in almost 30 countries globally, says Samara.

“People picture it in the desert but it’s just the same as any other racing, only using purebred Arabian horses, which are slightly slower than Thoroughbreds,” she says.

“Having Australians compete in races like these hopefully give Arabian horse racing a bit more exposure here.”

And while she’s fallen off a horse “a few times,” even breaking her collarbone once, Samara has never been afraid to get back on.

““With racing, there’s a real thrill of going fast, an adrenalin rush, and I love that,” she says.