Back in Australia with two new horses, Mary Hanna is excited to begin the journey of yet again training towards the Grand Prix goal. For the six-time Olympian, the road to the highest level is one she still enjoys as much as ever.
“I normally ride horses of around the 17-hand mark. This time I’ve got one that’s 16.2 hands and one that’s nearly 18 hands!” says Mary of her two new imports, Ivanhoe and Impress Taonga. Returning to Australia at the end of last year following her World Championship campaign, Mary is now looking forward to building partnerships with both Small Tour horses as they work towards Grand Prix.
Fresh off the plane and still settling in to Aussie life, Ivanhoe is a 10-year-old by Desperado – a KWPN stallion by Vivaldi, ridden at Grand Prix level by the Netherlands’ Emmelie Scholtens – out of a Jazz mare. “I do love a bit of Jazz,” says Mary, explaining that the gelding was purchased from Denmark’s Andreas Helgstrand via Patrik Kittel. Mary explains that having only just arrived in Australia, it’s still very early days with Ivanhoe, but so far, she’s enjoying the ride. “He’s a gorgeous horse, I think I’m really going to enjoy him,” says Mary.
“Ivanhoe’s strong points are his piaffe and passage; he’s solid in that and seems to enjoy it. He’s quite strong in a lot of areas; he hasn’t really got any big gaps. It’s always interesting getting the flying changes together with a new horse, because the changes are something that are quite personal. However, even in the short while I’ve been with him, I feel like that’s improving. We are working on straightness and really making the changes true and correct and straight, without him getting too heavy in the hands.”
The 18-hand addition to the stable is Impress Taonga, aka Tommie, a 10-year-old KWPN stallion by Vitalis out of Honeymoon, a Blue Hors Hotline mare. Mary has competed Tommie a couple of times at Small Tour level, scoring over 70% in the Prix St Georges at their first outing.
“Tommie’s a very sweet stallion and does have very nice manners at a competition, which is great. He’s got three really good paces. He has an amazing trot and he’s quite solid with his changes and very reliable. I’m working on his tempi changes, and his pirouettes are also good. The most challenging part for him would be the piaffe and passage; he can do some nice passage and he can do a nice little piaffe, but we have to sew it all together. That’s the next thing, and that takes time. Because he’s so big, I think he’s going to take longer to develop than Ivanhoe and I just want to be patient with him. It is quite challenging for me because he’s 18 hands… it’s a lot of horse! But he is really beautiful to sit on.”
“Three horses working towards
Grand Prix, that’s quite enough.”
STALLION OR MARE?
It’s not just the height that goes against precedence with Mary’s two new horses. In recent times she’s had mostly mares in her stables – notably her Tokyo Olympic mare Calanta and the beautiful Syriana – and she says that initially when looking for new horses, her preference was to continue that trend.
“I swore I’d never have a stallion again, but Tommie has got a very sweet nature. I used to ride stallions all the time back in the days when we were breeding a lot of horses, we would only pretty well ride stallions… in more recent times it’s been lovely having the mares and I do love mares… I was trying to buy a mare, but I couldn’t find one that worked. It’s actually quite hard to buy any horse nowadays, the horse market has become very difficult.”
While Mary does miss having mares, she says having the two boys in the stable is working out well and she couldn’t be happier: “They both seem to have really lovely personalities. We’re getting to like them more and more as we get to know them.”
Alongside Ivanhoe and Tommie, Mary is also enjoying training Christopher Ardron and Jason York’s gelding, CJP Sir Dragonfire II, whom she recently rode at Boneo to win the Advanced championship. “He has got talent for the piaffe and passage; we’re just working on getting him more collected and uphill, and we’re also just starting to teach him the one tempis now. That’s always fun and exciting! I’m not exactly sure of their plans for the future, but I’ve been really enjoying riding him.
“Three horses working towards Grand Prix, that’s quite enough,” laughs Mary. “And then I hop on my young horse, Luckybird, and work a little bit with the piaffe passage. That’s the bit I love training the most.” Luckybird is a seven-year-old by Everdale out of a mare whom Mary purchased at one of Van Olst Horses’ auctions. “He wasn’t so easy in the beginning, but he’s just suddenly turned the corner and starting to develop into a real dressage horse, and he’s showing great talent for the piaffe and passage. It took us a while to get the changes happening, but now they’re really getting established.
“Tori Weir – who’s worked with me for years – has formed a very nice partnership with Luckybird and so I’m also enjoying developing them because he’s showing great potential to be a Grand Prix horse,” explains Mary, adding that the aim is to qualify the gelding for the seven-year-old class at Dressage & Jumping with the Stars later this month.
Before Mary returned to Australia at the end of last year, she had been training with Finnish Olympic dressage rider Henri Rouste in Germany – and she’s continued lessons with him on Tommie via the internet. “I began training with Henri because I felt his training methods were most similar to the way I’d already been taught. I admire his riding greatly. He’s a very, very good rider and he’s right up with those high percentages we see nowadays.
“I haven’t trained Ivanhoe with anyone yet, but Patrik had offered to help me. He knows the horse very well and so it’d be great for us to get things going. It’s all dependent on Patrik having enough time as he’s extremely busy,” says Mary, explaining that at this stage she plans to head back over to Germany during the Australian winter for training and competition.
“The whole sport is changing. You have to get well into the seventies to be competitive on the international stage nowadays. It’s changing at a rapid rate and it is getting harder and harder. As I’m getting older and it’s getting harder, I don’t know if I can make that gap, but I’m not giving up.”
“It’s really important for
all the horses that
we take care of their joints.”
COACHING JESSICA DERTELL
Mary believes that a young Australian rider who could bridge that gap in the future is Jessica Dertell, whom she coaches. “I just find her a very interesting young rider. If anyone can bridge that gap, she has the talent, the backing, and the drive and determination to do it.”
Jessica has enjoyed success with stallion Cennin – who was imported from the Netherlands by Brett and Samantha Thomas of Sabble Farm – and more recently she’s also taken over the reins of Syriana, also purchased by Sabble Farm. “She’s really formed a lovely partnership with Syriana, which is not so easy because Syri’s quite picky about who she makes friends with. Jess has really connected with her beautifully and I can see when I go and teach her that the mare is really, really happy.”
Coaching is something that Mary says she is very much enjoying, and when she heads to shows these days it’s with a team. “We always go with a bit of a team. Last time at Boneo, we were pretty happy with all the horses; the students all had success too. We had owners Chris and Jason (CJP Sir Dragonfire II); we had young Rebecca Holmes; Tori did an over 70% with Luckybird for their first Medium test; and Jane Lawrence, with her schoolmaster Don Bravour, had her first Prix St Georges start and did a lovely test. It was a really nice day for everyone.”
Another important aspect of Mary’s team is her partnership with the joint health experts at 4CYTETM. “I think it’s a very good product,” says Mary of the 4CYTETM Epiitalis® gel. “When you’re starting to put the horses under pressure, teaching the piaffe and passage and doing lots of lateral work, that gets a lot harder on the joints… and so it’s really important for all the horses that we take care of their joints. We’ve had good results with it. All the horses seem pretty good, and they love it – it’s great that you can just give it to them orally and they actually really like it.”
Having just turned 17 last month, Syriana has long been on 4CYTETM and is enjoying competition life with Jess in the saddle, having already achieved some impressive results at Grand Prix level. “Jess is also hoping to qualify her for the Garryowen at Melbourne Royal. I found it quite amusing, in a recent show class Syri looked a little bit shocked that she wasn’t asked to do any piaffe or passage!
“I would actually be quite delighted if Jess got into the Garryowen. My aunt won the first two Garryowens, so it’d be rather nice if Syri went out and did well. Jess doesn’t want to do too many shows with the mare, because her main game is dressage, but if she’s going off to the hack shows and there’s a good surface… Syri seems to enjoy it. She likes having all the makeup on and all the attention; it’s nice for an older horse to be able to do some fun things like that.”
Mary says she’s very much enjoying the journey not only with Jess but all her students, as well as her own journey with her new horses. “Paris is a bit of a distant dream at the moment,” she muses in regard to next year’s Olympic Games. “I’ve got a lot of work to do before that’s even considered. If the horses went super well and that happened, that’d be lovely, but that’s not my main aim anymore.
“The part I love is developing the horses to Grand Prix, so that is my main aim right now. I’m trying to just educate the horses to be the best they can be and help other people to fulfil their ambitions.” EQ
This article was written in conjunction with 4CYTE TM. To find out more about their equine range of joint health products, click here.
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