Kristy Oatley has had many very good horses in her lifetime: influential stallion Don Ramiro, World Equestrian Games horses Maurice and Ronan, Olympians Wall Street, Quando Quando and Clive, and other top Grand Prix horses such as Oskar, Showtime and Don Bolero. However, the Australian dressage star says that her recently retired Du Soleil holds a truly special place in her heart.

Kristy says she never set out to retire Du Soleil at Wiesbaden last month, but when he won both the CDI4* Grand Prix and Freestyle on 71.848% and 79.430% respectively – the latter being a whisker short of a PB – she knew it was time for her 18-year-old ‘rocket’ to bow out on a high.

“Düse’s retirement was always in the back of my head, however, before I rode the Freestyle at Wiesbaden, I wasn’t thinking that it was going to be my last test with him. Afterwards, we were waiting for the prize giving; my long-time groom was putting on the white bandages and my daughter Rosie was standing beside me. I said to them: ‘I think this is it. We’ll end it here.’

“I often make a quick decision rather than waiting too long because otherwise you draw things out… do I do it? Do I not do it? After having a double victory, it felt right. He’s a wonderful horse. He’s 18 and could go until end of next year, but I wanted to finish on a high note.”

A HORSE WITH NO NAME

Kristy first saw her future star at a competition in Hamburg in 2013, and she recalls the then-eight-year-old looking like a Thoroughbred: “He was quite light on and very energetic. I looked at him – I’d never go out specifically looking for horses, but he caught my eye – and I was like, ‘that’s my horse’. I approached the rider and asked if he was for sale, but they said he definitely wasn’t on the market.”

Kristy knew nothing about him, not even his name – however she couldn’t stop thinking about “her horse”. “Afterwards, I went on ClipMyHorse.TV and looked up the rider. I saw the horse in a couple of tests, but he looked quite different and I wasn’t sure it was the same horse, and so I left it. A few months later, I got a telephone call from the stable where he was at explaining the owner was interested in selling him.” And so Kristy went to try the chestnut Hanoverian, who was by De Niro 6 (Donnerhall 11) out of a Caprimond mare named Capri Sonne.

“I went and tried him out. They had said to me the horse was really hot; they rode him first for me and I looked at how they rode him, so I could try and mirror how they were giving their aids to give myself the best start with him. As soon as I got on, we just clicked; he was seriously my horse.”

AN INTERNATIONAL CAREER

Kristy explains that Du Soleil was in fact very hot, however, he used his hotness in a positive way to give more expression. “That is not easy with hot horses,” she muses. “Often it can work in a negative way, but with him he used it to his absolute advantage. You just had to learn how to control him.”

Du Soleil began training with Sjef Janssen, whom Kristy had been coached by since 2009. “Sjef and Anky (van Grunsven) were awesome. They gave great lessons and Sjef could see and feel what was going to happen before it happened. We used that to our advantage to actually get Düse up to Grand Prix.”

Kristy and Düse debuted at FEI level Grand Prix in 2015, and by 2016 they were named on the Australian team for Rio in what was to be Kristy’s fourth Olympic appearance following Wall Street (Sydney 2000), Quando Quando (Beijing 2008), and Clive (London 2012). At Rio the pair were 42^nd individually.

Following the Olympics, Kristy began training with Ton de Ridder in Aachen – a move that came about as she could no longer fit in the travel from Germany to the Netherlands every fortnight to train with Sjef. “The kids were growing up too fast and it was too much in the end,” she explains of the travel. “Ton has been a key person in the last few years. He is an amazing support at competitions and is very positive. He’s been fantastic.”

Two years after Rio, Kristy and Du Soleil made the team for the 2018 World Equestrian Games in Tryon, USA, finishing 27^th in the Grand Prix and an incredible 12^th in the Special where they achieved a PB of 74.605%. Much to Kristy’s heartbreak, the Freestyle was cancelled due to inclement weather. “I loved riding the Freestyle with him and I loved the Special; they were just completely his tests,” she says. Later that year, the pair achieved a huge 79.300% at a World Cup event in Salzburg, Austria – a new Australian Grand Prix Freestyle record at the time.

Kristy and Du Soleil achieved their best Grand Prix score of 73.913% – another Australian record at the time – in the CDI-W at Pilisjászfalu, Hungary in May 2019. It was looking like a possible fifth Olympics for Kristy as Tokyo 2020 approached, however, after its rescheduling Kristy announced in early 2021 that she would not campaign for team selection – citing the challenges associated with the ongoing Covid-19 situation, as well as her desire to support daughter Rose in her bid to be selected for the FEI Dressage European Championships for Children, Juniors & Young Riders in Poland that August.

Despite electing not to campaign for Tokyo, Kristy and Düse still had another milestone to reach in their career together. In February this year, they posted a new personal best Freestyle score of 79.840% at the CDI-W in Neumünster, Germany. Added to their PB scores of 73.913% in the Grand Prix and 74.605% in the Special, and it really was a remarkable career.

GETTING OUT & ABOUT

Du Soleil reached FEI Big Tour in 2015 and then competed only a handful of times each year throughout his career, and as Kristy explains, that was very much a conscious decision: “I’m not a person that needs to go out every single weekend to a show. I always had that feeling, with all my horses, and I never competed them all that much. I always did select shows; when they were established at Grand Prix, probably four a year, maybe five maximum. I always had in the back of my mind that I never wanted the judges to think, ‘oh there’s that horse again’. I’ve always been a little bit reserved with going out and competing.”

Of course, these days Kristy also has to account for Rose’s competition schedule now that she’s at FEI level. “Rose needs to go out and get the experience, and I need a good week at home before her competitions with her. I then need at least a week to get my horses back into gear before I go to a show. I couldn’t do every weekend even if I wanted to… I also have the other two kids, so I try to balance it!” laughs Kristy. She and her husband, Piotr Staczek, have three children: Rose, 15, and sons Oskar, 17, and Ben, 13. Oskar is a natural sporting talent who’s “good at everything he does” while Ben excels at tennis and “is a little Nadal”. With Piotr previously playing soccer for Hamburg SV, sporting nous certainly seems to run in the family.

STILL RARING TO GO

Brilliant though Kristy and Du Soleil’s scores were, there was always a feeling that perhaps the chestnut rocket could have marked a little higher. “I do believe, honestly, that he was never marked accordingly to the way he went,” says Kristy as she reflects on the horse’s career.

She points out that like any horse he had his weaknesses, but the things he did well were exceptional. “He has amazing trot half-passes, and his extended trot… I was always trying to get a nine for his extended trot and I believe there wasn’t a horse out there that had an extended trot like him. He had the ground coverage, he had the length of rein, he had an amazing hind leg; however, if I was getting an eight or an eight-and-a-half, I was going well. Very rarely did he get a nine. He also has the most beautiful, controlled pirouettes; I always had six to eight strides, they were small, he sat. He just didn’t get the marks. I accepted it in the end.”

Marks aside, Kristy looks back on their partnership with immense pride. “Every show was fabulous with Düse because he’s such an honest horse and never wanted to do anything wrong. If I had a mistake, there was always a reason. Otherwise, he was absolutely perfect,” she says.

Kristy explains that Düse loves his work, and throughout his career was always ready to go each day. “After Wiesbaden he was raring to go in the box again and seriously wanting to be worked and out in training… we put him straight out in the paddock and he was like, ‘oh yeah, this is great’. And then after one day he was like, ‘okay, when are you coming to ride me?’ It was like, ‘no Düse, look, you can have a bit of a break now’.”

Kristy explains that life won’t really change too much for him; he’ll go out in the paddock, but he’ll still be ridden most days. The only change is he won’t be going to competitions. “He still has his king status at the stables!” she laughs.

“Rosie has ridden him in the past; when I had my two back operations in 2020, she rode him most of the time when I was out. He’s a little bit of a handful for her; when she used to ride Ronan, he was like, ‘oh, I’m going to take care of her’. But Düse is like, ‘you need to really ride me or don’t ride me at all’. They’re not really the best of friends, he’s seriously my horse!”

ROSENLORBEER

Düse may be retired, but Kristy is not short of competition horses. Her latest Grand Prix horse, Rosenlorbeer – an 11-year-old Oldenburger gelding by Romanov out of a Welt Hit II (Weltmeyer) mare – has competed twice at FEI Grand Prix level, scoring 67.978% at Wiesbaden.

“He’s a lot like Düse in a way,” says Kristy. “He’s very enthusiastic. He’s also a hot horse, but then also has an inner calmness, which Düse didn’t have. He could do nothing when I got him as an eight-year-old. It’s been a long but also quick journey in a way to get him up to Grand Prix. In the two and a half years I’ve had him, he was also very sick as he had EHV (equine herpesvirus) and was out for six months.” Kristy and Rosenlorbeer were recently named on Equestrian Australia’s FEI nominated entries list of eight combinations for the upcoming FEI World Championships.

Kristy also has a 10-year-old on the rise, who has already contested one Grand Prix at national level. “He’s small, he’s a rocket and a serious contender. I also have the chestnut stallion Veneno, who I’ve given to Rosie this year for the Juniors. He’s done an Inter II already with me. I’ll see what happens next year, whether I take him over or if Rosie gets to keep him!”

SPOONFULS OF VEGEMITE

Kristy has been training in Germany since connecting with Rosemarie Springer at a Queensland dressage clinic when she was just 12 years old. She initially trained with Rudolf Zeilinger and then Herbert Rehbein at Grönwohldhof northeast of Hamburg; when Mr Rehbein passed away in 1997, Kristy continued training with his wife Karin and remained based at the property until 2011 when it was sold. She was then based at another private stable until just recently purchasing a property from Martina Hannöver’s in-laws, remaining near Hamburg.

Despite having now spent more than 30 years living in Germany, Kristy is still an Australian at heart – after all, her first serious lessons were about as Aussie as they come, with her ever-supportive parents Rosalind Oatley and Rainer Nist taking her three times a week to Lochinvar for lessons with none other than Rozzie and Heath Ryan.