Matheson says time is on their side so pushing Graffiti MH too hard, too early isn't on the agenda.
She believes they have entered the realm of do-ables but, again, she isn't about to lose sleep over it if she doesn't prevail.
It takes two to tango in showjumping but the Massey University student, who is in her final year of a business degree, is selflessly preoccupied with Graffiti MH's attributes.
The horse, she says, is enormous at that level, standing at 16.3 hands high.
"She has to be well prepared and you want to know that the horse is confident and strong enough to be at the best of her ability because you don't want to go in there and screw everything up."
Matheson sticks religiously to the processes of taking Graffiti MH through the other grades at any given meeting, often the day before, to ensure she is primed before the marquee event.
That ritual is useful in getting her familiar with the arena and to help avoid any other distractions when she jumps in the bigger rounds.
"It's all about confidence — the horse has to be confident."
They had their trivial oops-a-daisy moments last weekend but the combo didn't let the fear of what may happen turn them into mere participants making up numbers.
Matheson and Graffiti MH finished the two rounds on four faults to ward off rivals in the field of nine.
Samantha Morrison (Tauranga) and Biarritz and Matheson had set the tone in the opening round of the Gary Sinclair-designed course on four faults each.
Series leader Rose Alfeld of Leeston, on My Super Nova, had eight, Maurice Beatson of Dannevirke, saddling Mandalay Cove, had eight. Brooke Edgecombe of Waipukurau, on LT Holst Andrea, squeezed into the 16-fault cut with two other combos despite demolishing the second last fence. She kept her composure to regather her reins to scale the last fence.
Robert Steele of Dannevirke, on LT Holst Bernadette, had mustered 33 faults.
Alfeld clinched a faultless second round in 66.29s to finish with eight overall. Morrison added eight to have a tally of 12 faults in 63.83 but Matheson absorbed the pressure as the last combo to emulate Alfeld's feat in 66.48s. A flirtatious brush at the last fence gave her a minor palpitation but she need not have worried.
"That was a metre sixty [1.6m] so it was quite large and we did give it a bit of a rub but it stayed up."
Matheson rides with two sets of reins so when she came close to losing her whip after the first double in the second round she let one go to regather but it became a little tricky when she couldn't thread her fingers back into the reins again.
"It doesn't really matter because I can still ride that way. I did drop them but I got it back in a second," says the rider, who has patiently built a rapport with the mount for the past four years.
And although it doesn't look like much space and time, Matheson is adept at making a smart recovery between rails.
"I've brought her up from the time she was a young horse," she says of the Judith Matthews-bred Hanoverian mare.
Matthewsco-owns Graffiti MH with Angela and Rod Miller, of Havelock North, who watched her prevail although the breeder wasn't there.
The co-operative involving the three parties speaks volumes.
"Hopefully we'll end up going overseas," she says.
The plan is to embark on a trip to Australia early next year to expose Graffiti to stiffer competition.
Someone who was glued to her performance was coach Butch Thomas in the United States via livestream coverage.
Matheson has had a few lessons with Thomas in the past two years but it isn't a fixed and formal arrangement.
"He comes over here [Hawke's Bay] for a couple of months in a year so I'm lucky enough to get in some training for a brief moment."
Thomas, she says, doesn't come to the Bay to mentor but to sort out his farm.
No doubt Matheson isn't shy to pick the brains of elite riders in the province, such as Maurice Beatson, of Dannevirke, and Sue Thompson, of Hastings.
"I've known both of them for a very long time. Sue's coached me from the time I was little and she was always there and wanted me to do well so I go to her for advice."
Matheson has competed in four out of five World Cup qualifiers, missing the Hawera one.
The next one is in Dannevirke in the New Year's Day weekend and it'll culminate with the final one at Waitemata a week after that.
"Whoever wins [the overall title] will get to go to Paris for the World Cup," she says.
