‘What a 24 hours!’ Rider wins national title, has emergency surgery – then aces her GCSEs

A 16-year-old who went from winning a national title to emergency surgery had quite the 24 hours – and she went on to ace her GCSEs a few days later.

Mia Archer and her 16-year-old mare Miss Poppy II triumphed in the Harry Hall Anyone Can Event (ACE) junior 1m final at Aintree International Equestrian Centre in June. The next morning, Mia underwent an operation to remove a 9x9cm ovarian cyst.

“What a 24 hours!” Mia’s mother Liz told H&H. “She’d been competing at 4pm the day before, then surgery at 11am. She stayed in overnight, then did a GCSE the next morning.”

ACE is a series of British Eventing competitions involving a course of showjumps followed by another course of simulated knock-down cross-country fences. Mia told H&H she was at a show at the start of this year, realised the 1m class was a qualifier and duly earned her ticket to the championship.

“We didn’t really know what to expect but got there and it was amazing,” she said. “The arena is amazing and they’d made a massive effort, and Poppy felt really good. A few people were having poles so I kind of hoped we’d be somewhere up there – but didn’t expect to win. It was amazing.”

Mia enjoyed her fantastic achievement but on the way home with her parents, she started to feel ill.

“It was just a bit of a stomach ache and I thought ‘Get on with it’, that I was just tired,” she said. “But then it felt a bit more serious. We called 111, and everything happened after that.”

The family took Poppy home, then as instructed went to A&E with Mia, where they faced a long wait.

“We got to the waiting room at 11pm, and were sitting there on chairs till the next morning,” she said. “I had two lots of morphine but was still in agony.”

Liz said doctors eventually scanned Mia and found the cyst, which had got itself twisted round her ovary.

“They said they needed to operate immediately,” she said. “How can someone have been competing in a championship, then done all the interviews, and it was all lovely, then less than 24 hours later be in this situation?”

But the keyhole surgery went well. Mia was riding again two weeks later, having completed her GCSEs. Later in the summer, she found out she had achieved three A-star grades, one B and all the rest were A.

“I was concerned about not doing them,” Mia said. “As soon as I could walk, I went in [to school].”

Mia is now back at school studying for her A levels, and would like to qualify for ACE again next year.

“I was competing not long after the surgery; just cracked on and got on with it!” she said. “It’s like it never happened.”

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