"I have a jumping background," she said. "I didn't really like dressage at all until it was dressage or nothing and now I've made it work and really enjoy it.
"Now it's quite addictive. You get a couple of bouncy strides into a trot and I'm like, 'I want that all the time'."
The Paralympics will be Gunner and mount Huntingdale Incognito's first big European-based competition. Competing at Greenwich Park will be significantly different to competing in front of small crowds in Christchurch but it's something Gunner feels they're ready for.
"We had a familiarisation day at our arena in the north of England," she said. "We had flags, we had umbrellas, banging, mobility scooters and people clapping, flowers, pretty much everything we could think of to get the horses used to that sort of atmosphere.
"It can be quite hard to know how he's going to react, especially to 10,000 people, because he's probably had 50 people cheering and he was fine. He really liked it, but 10,000 will be a bit different. I hope he likes it, too. I'm sure he will."