New Zealander Gaylene Lennard and her wonderful black gelding Jax Johnson won the hearts and respect of a very appreciative Australian crowd with their stunning win in the Grand Prix CDI3* Freestyle at the Sydney CD-Lite.

To describe Gaylene as single-minded, determined and competitive gives you a good idea of her character. When Gaylene is out to prove a point, there is no stopping until the job is done. “In for a penny, in for a pound” and “never say never” could be the mantras that are etched in her mind.

Gaylene hails from Te Aroha on the North Island in the stunning Waikato region, where she and her sister Dorothy live on a property with their mother. The property has been in the family for several generations and is still a very viable dairy farm. For generations the family has been very involved with horses one way or another, and for Gaylene and Dorothy, they are both very competitive and successful show riders.

Gaylene has had many show horse champions, in particular El Sid. A Thoroughbred from Hobartville stud in Windsor, NSW, El Sid was shown by Di White before he was sold to Gaylene after Brisbane Royal Show when he was only four years old. She won a lot with El Sid and in fact brought him across to represent New Zealand at the Grand National competition at Werribee and never doubted he would win. It was on his third trip that he was sashed champion. (Never say never to Gaylene!)

It was when she had El Sid that she started to dabble in dressage and trained with Clemens Dierks and imported a horse through him and PSI called Don Zello as a four-year-old. This was her first dressage horse and she took him through the ranks to FEI.

Gaylene was thinking about looking for another dressage horse when she saw a video on Facebook that attracted her attention. It was a black horse by Johnson and she thought it was a very fancy mover. It was not so far away and so she went to look and, no messing around, she bought him. His breeding is very much New Zealand on the dam’s side as she was an Anamour x Distelfink-bred mare and these two stallions ruled the dressage breeding world in New Zealand for a long time; almost every dressage horse there has these stallions in their pedigree. He was bred by David Woolley and his then wife Rania Todd, and was actually sold to Gaylene by Rania.

Gaylene rode Jax when she went to look at him and was told she needed to wear spurs and carry a whip as he was at that time not a great forward thinker. He was good to ride, but as she said, “how the hell do you know when they are only four and just broken-in”. She got him home and it was throw away the whip and the spurs and so it was kick him to get him going – WELL… Jax had other ideas about that and in no uncertain terms told Gaylene it was time to get off and he organised that pretty efficiently.

So, the first year was learning to ride him – actually, that is a nice way of saying learning to stay on and be able to dismount at your own initiative, not Jax’s! Gaylene, as has been briefly mentioned, is fairly determined and there was a lot of trying to work out how to stay aboard and not get pelted off, but slowly she did. She so well remembers taking him to her coach Vanessa Way for the first time, and while she was lungeing him noticed that Vanessa’s face was “a bit pale”.  At the end of lungeing him, Vanessa exclaimed, “surely you are not going to get on that!”

A BUMPY RIDE

Of course, Gaylene did, and to even her amazement she didn’t fall off. Gaylene remembers many a lesson, and especially the first few competitions, where there were a hell of a lot of bumpy moments and many loud and encouraging words from Vanessa about keep his head up and holding on! So, for the first year it was really about staying on, and in Vanessa’s words: “This horse is amazing but you are really going to have to man up!”

Vanessa and Gaylene have a proper understanding. There is a big difference between showing and dressage, but for sure an advantage with all that expertise in showmanship and ringcraft combined with preparation and presentation brings a bit of a competitive edge when it comes to dressage. It all shows now.

Vanessa, a student and good friend of Carl Hester and Charlotte Dujardin, has a positive and knowledgeable way and is very much a shoot-from-the-hip sort of girl and a spade is a spade. Gaylene and Vanessa absolutely get it, and Gaylene is totally honest to the point of being blunt, but that is what makes success and the truth is the truth! No sugar-coating. I am sure there was no sugar-coating with Gaylene in the training and process to Grand Prix here.

Vanessa adores the horse and always has despite his quirky early days. She admires Gaylene’s grit and determination, and the wonderful thing is that she is not just a listener but also a doer and leaves no stone unturned in her drive to the top of whatever she does.

So “man up” she did and Jax started to really show his worth and had a few Preliminary starts, and then with a whole lot more training jumped levels and moved up to Medium. He was in fact only Small Tour two years ago and had his first Grand Prix start in October of 2021. His second Grand Prix was at a competition ‘Dressage for Denmark’ and Gaylene simply wanted to make a good test and received an MER (Minimum Entry Requirement) for the FEI World Championships in Denmark later this year. With Covid restrictions and travel problems, there have been few competitions available in New Zealand and Gaylene was encouraged and thought herself that it would be great to put her foot in the water of dressage in Australia. The Sydney CD-Lite was coming up and she thought it would be a great experience and a chance of a second MER that she needed if an overseas trip was looming.

There were no more NZ competitions where this would be possible and in three weeks the trip was organised. Gaylene admitted she only got on a flight at the last minute and she had no accommodation at the venue in Australia as nothing was available, not even a caravan, at such late notice. She told a great friend in Tessa Calder that if she was not going to make the trip with her, she was not going, so Tessa jumped at the opportunity and the adventure began!

They arrived a week before the competition started. In New Zealand, Vanessa would make the trip to Gaylene’s farm once a month for training, but since Covid Gaylene trains weekly with Vanessa online. So, it was home away from home at SIEC as far as training goes, as she trained at the venue and warmed up with Vanessa in New Zealand working remotely.

The Grand Prix was in fact only the combination’s third ever. Gaylene was a little tentative about achieving her goal of a second MER, and finished third with 66.652%; nevertheless, an MER was achieved. She was disappointed with her performance and felt that she had been overwhelmed by the pressure she put on herself to do well for all her supporters at home. She says without that support it was a lonely place and she wanted to do well for that reason. In the Special she was more in tune and she won that test on 70%, and can you believe it was the horse’s second Special and Gaylene’s second ever Special as well!

WAITING & WAITING

So, it was on to the Freestyle. Another warm-up and mentoring session with Vanessa Way and Gaylene was ready to rock and roll. As she entered the arena after a short 25-minute warm-up, the judges were all in a huddle as there was a technical problem with the previous horse’s test. It seemed that she had to wait forever for that meeting to end and then for the judges to sort out their marks. Gaylene thought she had used too much petrol whilst waiting, but the bell sounded and the determined, persistent and competitive Gaylene came to the fore! An amazing test and a record score of 76.875% was set for a Freestyle at the Sydney CD-Lite/CDI (the previous event Grand Prix Freestyle record was set by Ricky MacMillan and Crisp in 2004). It was an inspiring performance with Katrina Wüst of Germany giving them a whopping 78.925%.

The well-educated crowd were truly in awe with many standing in appreciation. It was a stunning performance and, despite being held up before the test, Gaylene’s real spirit showed through. Her hacking days of showing your horse for all to enjoy came flooding back. Her years of training and her self-confidence and humility came through. The piaffe and passage were full of expression as were the changes and the pirouettes; a very confident and competent job. There is still room for better marks and that was no fluke. His walk showed a little tension but this was his second ever Freestyle at the level as it was with Gaylene. The atmosphere was inspiring and Jax’s sensitivity and enjoyment showed in the walk where he was ready to get on with the fun bits of the test. He stood like a trouper at the end of the test when the crowd showed their enthusiasm, gaining straight eights.

Gaylene is not one to show a lot of emotion and it was simply a very proud moment. Jax only had a cotton ear bonnet on as he used to be quite noise sensitive, but not now. He in fact loved the appreciative crowd as much as they loved him. The bonnet was removed at the gear check and in the hurry for the presentation it was not put back on. To her delight he was immaculate in the atmosphere of the presentation and didn’t he look amazing in the passage and extended trot at that time! What a performance, what a horse, what a rider, what a result and what a journey that looks as if it’s just beginning.

Gaylene says she was delighted to have had the most fabulous time. “Everyone was welcoming and friendly and Jax has never been as settled, ever, and we had an amazing show,” she says. “He is already home in NZ as he left the morning after the Freestyle and will have a short break and I will do some serious contemplation about the prospect of going to Denmark. That is all very much up in the air and I will need to do as much research as I can. That decision will take time and serious thought.

“I brought him to Sydney to see how he would cope with the flight and the atmosphere, the change of environment and all the things that a horse has to cope with about travelling. He has sucked it all up and actually has seriously surprised me with his attitude. It’s like he has said ‘at last you realise what my life is really destined to be and now here we are and I am ready for all this’.

“What can I say but what a horse! And I am looking forward with a logical mind towards the next step. What is so inspiring is that Jax is my second ever dressage horse and I only started to ride dressage tests 10 years ago. It’s pretty amazing.

“I actually have his sister at home in the paddock as a two-year-old. So many people ask what I think, but what the hell can you say until you start to work with them? Even then you never know and need to just keep waiting and training and see what you end up with. Look at Jax in the beginning, who would have guessed?”

What can you say or do but to be inspired. With the attitude that Gaylene has, anything is possible. If you don’t have a go you will never know and Gaylene is not one for standing back. What a treat to see another New Zealander back at a CDI in Australia and congratulations on so many levels. EQ

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