Dural ‘reindeer’ steps onto the national stage

A miniature horse from Dural will put her best foot forward with the hopes of impressing the latest crop of Australia’s Got Talent judges.

Thumbelina and owner Noeline Cassettari. Pictures: Angelo Velardo

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Noeline Cassettari will bring Christmas in July to audiences across Australia when she and her pet “reindeer” Thumbelina appear on Australia’s Got Talent this weekend.

Thumbelina will be performing tricks to her favourite tune hoping to impress the judges on the latest season of the television show.

Mrs Cassettari, of Dural, has had Thumbelina since she was six months old and began taking Thumbelina to weekly dog agility training at Castle Hill from the time she was little.

Thumbelina the miniature horse.

Thumbelina has advanced trick training.

“She’s too little to ride so I thought, ‘what can we do?’,” Mrs Cassettari said.

“So we’ve been doing agility and things that require training.”

When Mrs Cassettari saw advertisements for Australia’s Got Talent, she thought it would be the perfect opportunity to show off Thumbelina’s advanced tricks.

“I’ve enjoyed doing the trick training with her and there’s not many opportunities to do it in public,” she said.

“And so I guess I saw the ads for it and applied and was a bit surprised when they said yes to be honest.”

Mrs Cassettari, 57, will take to the stage during the show’s premiere on Sunday, July 28 hoping to wow the new judging panel of American singer Nicole Scherzinger, actor Shane Jacobson, celebrity chef Manu Feildel and stage star Lucy Durack.

Noeline and Thumbelina will perform their routine to a national audience.

The ninth season of the talent competition will see singer-songwriter Ricki-Lee Coulter take over as host as the contestants put on their best performance in the hopes of winning the ultimate $100,000 prize.

Mrs Cassettari said the Australia’s Got Talent experience was “really, really fun”.

“I thought it would be stressful but it actually wasn’t stressful, it was exciting because you got to meet all these other people who can do amazing things,” she said.

Bringing a miniature horse onto a stage requires a little preparation; Mrs Cassettari had to buy tiny shoes from Build-A-Bear so that Thumbelina would not slip on stage, and a grassed area off stage also had to be arranged.

Performing tricks in front of the bright lights and sounds of the stage also added a unique challenge compared to doing them at their Dural home.

“I found when you do it in a different location often you find she’s no idea what you’re talking about, so you need to make sure your training is very good to make sure you can do it in a different location,” Mrs Cassettari said.