My goodness, it is almost Christmas and I am already broke and have so much that I wanted to do this year that I haven’t! Oh, my goodness!

Did you see the results of the dressage at EQUITANA on 10-11 November? Very interesting. The Grand Prix was won by Jessica Dertell riding Cennin. Jessica is 18 years old. Jessica also won the Grand Prix, Grand Prix Freestyle and the Grand Prix Special at the 2022 Australian Dressage Championships at Boneo Park on 13-16 October. I think she would have to be the youngest rider in Australian history to have won the open Australian Grand Prix Dressage Championship ever. My goodness, this has to be so very promising for the Australian future.

In actual fact, the top three placegetters at the Australian Championships in the open Grand Prix Freestyle and the Grand Prix Special were all young riders. All of them are a production of the Under-25 Grand Prix competition and program.

Just getting back to EQUITANA in November, the winner of the CDI-W Grand Prix Freestyle was another young rider, Lindsey Ware, riding Aristede. Lindsey is 20. Again, all three top placings in the Grand Prix test at EQUITANA came from Australian young riders who are products of the Under-25 Grand Prix dressage program. Where are these young riders coming from?

Both Lindsey and Jessica are based in Victoria and are part of the Hygain Dressage Young Rider Squad and Development Program. I think the personality driving this program is one of Australia’s national dressage selectors, Jan Smith. Of course, there are other people who are instrumental in the Victorian program, and I mean no disrespect. The fact is, holy smoke! This Victorian program is having an enormous impact on Dressage Australia if ever there was one. Well done to the Victorians, and this is very likely to make a huge impact on results up to and including the Brisbane Olympics in 2032.

Just before I leave this topic, I would note that the current Australian Under-25 Grand Prix Dressage Champion from the Australian Dressage Championships at Boneo Park in October is Mary Nitschke, who was from South Australia and now based in New South Wales.

STRONG MESSAGE

I think the Germans credit their current production of amazing young Grand Prix riders who are challenging their established superstars, and the whole world, to their very active young rider program. Not just Germany, I guess, because the reigning World Champion, Charlotte Fry, who is just 26, has also come through the British Young Rider Under-25 program. My goodness, that is a very strong message for the Australian High Performance managers right across Australia. And these results, in my opinion, are demanding a very serious shake-up and refocus in the existing Australian Dressage High Performance programs. Just talk to the Victorians and Jan Smith.

Just before I leave this topic, I did mention in my September 2022 column in Equestrian Life, how important the young dressage riders were to Australian fortunes come Brisbane Olympics 2032. I should point out that of course many of our current stars will likely be instrumental as well for Brisbane and deserve support. However, there is no country in the world, and no sport in the world, that can have an exciting future and ignore the wellbeing and development of their young athletes coming up through the ranks as well.

Internationally, the two dressage riders out there in the world today really smashing it and catching everyone’s imagination are the Tokyo Olympic gold medallist from Germany, Jessica Von Bredow-Werndl riding TSF Dalera BB, and the World Champion from Great Britain, Lottie Fry riding Glamourdale. Jessica just won the invitation-only CDI5* Grand Prix at Stockholm, which purportedly had the top 10 riders in the world. Invitation-only! Jessica scored 83.065% in the Grand Prix and in the Freestyle scored 88.760%. Yes, these are the types of scores that our Australian High Performance programs have to target over the next 10 years.

I personally will be very relieved when our Australian High Performance people start to respond — or try to respond — to where we need to go. Anyway, interestingly the World Champion from August this year, Lottie Fry, did not compete at this high-profile CDI5* competition in Stockholm. Lottie is competing at the London International Horse Show on 15-19 December with her Tokyo team bronze medal horse, Everdale. Just keep in mind that her younger World Championship gold medal horse from this year is Glamourdale.

WATCH THIS SPOT

Guess what?! Jessica is not going to the London International Horse Show! Do you think it is possible that these two mighty competitors, who are just so, so good, are kind of avoiding each other and a head-to-head? Just watch this spot. They cannot keep ducking each other forever and it will be the show to stop all shows when they go head-to-head. It will be a standard that has rarely ever been seen in the dressage world. If you are even slightly interested in dressage, this will be the clash of the titans. Compulsory viewing!

For performances of this standard the riding is 100% critical. However, it is always worth remembering that the athlete in the equestrian disciplines is actually the horse. These riders, no matter how good they are, without special horses will compete and be part of the equestrian world without ever rising to the very top. The horse and his talent and his welfare and his state of mind are critical. The horse is everything. The horse is desperate for an outstanding and dedicated partner in the form of a rider, so it is a performance dependent upon a unique partnership. Nevertheless, never forget the horse is everything.

So, TSF Dalera BB is by a very interesting stallion called Easy Game. Until the Tokyo Olympics, I had never heard of this stallion. He has had only a limited number of offspring, with one of them being TSF Dalera which has rocketed Easy Game into the limelight. Easy Game is by Gribaldi, and that is massively significant. Gribaldi is also the sire of Totilas, who rewrote dressage history and set records in terms of high scores with the Dutchman Edward Gal in the saddle. Totilas has gone on to be a very successful sire in his own right and was well represented at Tokyo 2020 with his very first drop of foals featuring.

Well back on the dam side of TSF Dalera you will find Hohenstein 1, who also has been influential in producing Olympic Grand Prix dressage horses. To be exact, Hohenstein 1 is the sire of 15 Grand Prix dressage horses, and I have no idea how many Grand Prix horses there are with Hohenstein 1 further back in the pedigree. So, TSF Dalera is clearly carrying some really well performed bloodlines.

Glamourdale, who is the current World Champion under Lottie Fry, was bred by Van Olst Horses and this stud has in recent times been outstanding in producing top-of-the-range dressage horses. The Van Olst stud stands Negro, who is the sire of Valegro who was partnered by the Great Britain rider Charlotte Dujardin and who won individual dressage gold and team dressage gold at the London 2012 Olympics. This was the most amazing English turnaround; twelve years earlier at the Sydney 2000 Olympics, Australia beat Great Britain easily. Well, GB did something about it and Australia is still thinking about it.

GENETIC SECRET

Anyway, Valegro revolutionised Great Britain’s standing in the dressage world and the British have hung on to this new standing very successfully. Valegro went on to win the World Championships in 2014 and then the individual gold again in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. Well, Lottie Fry, who is also a British rider, rode Everdale to a team bronze medal in Tokyo and then Glamourdale to an individual gold medal in 2022 at the FEI World Championships in Herning, Denmark. Both Everdale and Glamourdale are out of Negro mares, which seems to be the British genetic secret. Interestingly, both Glamourdale and Everdale are by the stallion Lord Leatherdale.

Lottie Fry seems to be a very, very good rider on horses with varying genetics. However, she seems to be an absolute superstar when she is riding horses by Negro or out of Negro mares. This year, Lottie won the seven-year-old World Championships for young horses on Kjento, who is by Negro out of a Jazz mare. Jazz represented Holland at the World Equestrian Games at a very young age and has now evolved into one of the most outstanding sires of Grand Prix horses competing at the Olympics and World Championships in the world.

So, the moral of the story is that these genetics in the top horses are in most cases already well proven. Here in Australia, we are very enthusiastic about our breeding programs, and with the advent of frozen semen we can access most of the top sires in the world. This is really important for our top riders going forward. Because of our climate and farmland, we are probably as a country more able to produce these top horses than any other country in the world. In actual fact, I think we are producing horses equivalent to the best in the world. This is a very important development with the Brisbane Olympics in 2032 on the horizon.

So, to those of you who feel that the Brisbane Olympics have your name on it, then just remember, Brisbane is 10 years away. That means you can buy a two-year-old or three-year-old or a four-year-old, and come Brisbane they will be in their prime. You can actually buy youngsters that are bred to be gold medallists. Buying horses this young does mean that they are not going to be super, super expensive. Ten years is long enough for you to study and work as a rider to become a suitable challenger for 83% in the Brisbane Olympic Grand Prix.

We as Australians so, so need people thinking that way. To win an Olympic gold medal in your own country is the biggest honour you could ever achieve, and it would echo through your family for generations to come and change the visions of so many young Australians coming up through the sport. It would be a magnificent contribution to Australia. EQ

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Cheers,

Heath

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE TO READ BY HEATH RYAN:

Planning for Paris, Leading to LA, Building for Brisbane – Equestrian Life, November 2022

Eventing Results: Disappointing but Promising! – Equestrian Life, October 2022