Karyn grew up in the Auckland area and spent time at pony club and eventing which was a great part of the development of her skills with horses.
Karyn was also an athlete in her own right, competing in swimming and triathlons. She was an age group champion, and this background gives her an in-depth knowledge into training regimes and the athletic requirements of the horse.
She spent a couple of years at university before taking on roles in office management and accounting.
While she was working full-time she still held an owner-trainers licence which meant she worked the horses prior to going to work.
When shifting to Matamata with her husband,
Hamish, she started riding trackwork for Katrina Alexander in addition to training her own horses. She then started up her own breaking in and pre-training business which involved her pre-training a number of two-year-olds for top trainer Roger James.
Karyn then took out her professional trainers’ licence, largely in response to requests from a number of clients that she had been pre-training for. This was so that she could continue training these horses of whom one happened to be the well-performed Swallow.
Karyn and
Hamish shifted to their own property four years ago and continue to develop this into a high-class training facility.