Led into the dressage world by an eventer who had a preference for sand dancing, Kaitlin Colless became fascinated with not only the sport – but also breeding and bloodlines. Following two stints in Germany and a university degree, she founded Sevenoaks Farm and is not only breeding quality horses but is now also one of the youngest Hanoverian breed assessors in the world.

GAP YEAR IN GERMANY

At 18 when she finished high school, Kaitlin took a gap year and travelled to Germany where she was a working student at Hof Brüning, a Hanoverian stud and dressage training stable near Hamburg. This European experience furthered her interest in the Hanoverian breed and really ignited a passion for bloodlines. Kaitlin says she also gained a lot of insight into riding and producing young horses, preparing mares and youngstock for breed testing, and presenting young horses for sale.

Returning to Australia, she says that her parents were keen on her having a second line of expertise beside horses. “I went to university and did something totally non-horsey… I studied criminology!” Kaitlin says, explaining that she continued to ride and compete two horses while at university. Not having evented for three years at that stage, she opted to stick with dressage and also continued breeding one or two foals each year to keep her little breeding program ticking over.

“I give the same advice now to the students that I teach: you can work in the horse industry, but you just never know when your life might change or you might decide that you don’t want to do it anymore. Having the knowledge or a career in something else is always a good idea… so while I haven’t used my degree, I’m always really glad that my parents encouraged me to do that.”

After four years studying at the University of Queensland, Kaitlin opted to take another gap year and went back to Germany. “I was still really drawn to working with horses. I went back to Germany and based with Hayley Beresford, where I got an incredible experience riding higher educated horses and also selling horses.

“I loved everything about working at Hayley’s and how she did everything. That was just an incredible experience and one that I’m really grateful to Hayley for giving me.” Kaitlin says this experience was a deciding factor in answering the burning question of whether she was going to use her degree and just enjoy horses… or start a business and do horses as a job.

SEVENOAKS FARM

Kaitlin opted for the latter, and so horses became her career. Returning to Australia in 2013 she set up her own business, Sevenoaks Farm. “When I came back to Australia, I set up my business and took horses for training and selling – while also continuing to breed a couple of foals each year – and decided that’s what I wanted to do,” she explains.

From the first foundation mare she and her family bred, Kaitlin’s breeding program has expanded over the years. “It’s grown from using really good quality, proven Australian stallions – such as Fisherman’s Friend, Lauries As, and Riverside – that have been successful at Grand Prix, to getting a little bit braver on my own part and using frozen semen and getting the opportunity to travel to Germany a few times and see the stallions over there. [The breeding program] has grown and it’s gotten more diverse. As I’ve retained more fillies, I’ve been able to use a greater variety of stallions over the years.”

In recent seasons, international stallions Kaitlin has used include Vitalis, Foundation, Iron and Total Diamond. What began with one mare has now expanded to six, and Kaitlin also has three fillies she has retained who will join her breeding program in the coming years.

TAKING STOCK

Of course, nothing with horses is ever straightforward. Six years ago, Kaitlin had a nasty riding accident that left her with a traumatic brain injury: “I had six brain bleeds and fractured my face and my orbital floor. It was a really significant injury.”

Following the accident Kaitlin had to learn to walk again. “I spent six months in the brain injury rehabilitation unit. I think that when the neurologist realised that I was a horse rider, he was just already shaking his head because he sees a lot of people that do BMX and horse riding. According to my neurologist, I’m never allowed to ride a horse ever again!

“After the accident, I took stock at my life and went, ‘maybe I don’t want to be riding 12 horses a day’ and there’s definitely no doubt that long term that wasn’t going to be sustainable for me,” says Kaitlin.

“I needed to make an adjustment and, number one, follow a little bit more in my passion, but number two, just make some changes to the way I do things. I went from breeding one or two horses a year to this year I have five coming.”

Kaitlin plans to focus more on breeding and selling progeny rather than taking on clients’ horses to train and sell, thereby reducing the number of horses she has in work; currently, she’s managed to reduce that number to eight! “The plan is to make things a little bit easier on myself and reduce the risk to my head with potential concussions, essentially,” she explains.

“It’s given me also a hugely different perspective on life. I love breeding the horses; I love following their journey with the riders they end up with, and how that transpires and the feedback that you get from those people. Honestly, there’s nothing like that.”

Kaitlin still competes, currently mostly on sale horses as hers haven’t been old enough to enter the competition arena yet. “I have purchased two fillies that I’m really excited about; they might be ready to compete next year. It’s really nice to have horses that you have ownership of. I then have the two younger fillies growing up in the paddock as well for the future, which is also something that I’m pretty excited about.”

THIRD GENERATION

The 2022 season saw the arrival of Kaitlin’s first third-generation foal. “He was the first foal from Sevenoaks Riviera, my Riverside mare, and by stallion Cadeau Noir. To get to the third generation of my breeding program in 15 years was a really exciting milestone for me; I didn’t have huge expectations in terms of how he was going to grow being the first foal from that mare. I was just absolutely stoked that he was such good quality.” Sevenoaks Calimero Noir’s quality was recognised, and he was subsequently named the Hanoverian Horse Society of Australia’s 2023 Top Hanoverian Colt of the Year.

“That recognition gave me so much enthusiasm and pride to keep on going… to see that the quality is improving in my own breeding program with each generation. I was really proud of him. He’s sold to a professional dressage rider, and he’s been recommended to stay as a stallion prospect. There’s a really exciting future for him.”

Kaitlin also has a filly from Sevenoaks Rafaela (Rotspon) by Iron from the same crop of foals that was awarded Gold classification from the HHSA. “Foals are scored on four components: their walk and trot, their overall type and conformation, and their limbs conformation,” explains Katilin.

“If they average 8 or higher for everything – so 32 out of 40 – they are a Gold foal, and if they average 30 to 31½, they’re a Silver foal. The scoring is pretty hard on the foals; to average 8 or higher, it’s basically like getting an 80% test. It is quite a hard achievement. I think last year in Australia we had roughly 190 foals and I think we had 14 Gold foals.”

Kaitlin had several foals this season, one of which was a brown colt named Sevenoaks French Legacy, bred via embryo transfer (by Fusionist) from one of the mares that she has started to ride, named French Sparrow. “She’s a really, really outstanding mare, by Follow Me and her mother is by Johnson and a full sibling to Edward Gal’s stallion, Jack Sparrow. She’s a super, super well-bred mare and I think that she’s got a really big future. Hopefully I’ll be able to do her justice.”

While dark brown and black dressage horses appear to be in vogue, Kaitlin can’t go past a chestnut with bling. “Oh my goodness, chestnut with some white! For me I just can’t go past a chestnut with bling, absolutely every time. The last two seasons I’ve kept blingy chestnut fillies, it’s definitely my thing… I can’t help it!” This current season, Kaitlin welcomed another chestnut filly named Sevenoaks Tempranillo, by Total Diamond PS and out of Driving Miss Daisy (pictured earlier in this article, Don Gold/Royal Hit), as well as a chestnut colt by Light My Fire (who has already sold), and a beautiful buckskin filly by Daily Dancer.

HANOVERIAN TRAILBLAZER

Currently the vice-president of the HHSA, Kaitlin also became a breed assessor two years ago – an achievement she says was “really fulfilling personally”.

“I finished my training with Hannoveraner Verband [Germany’s Hanoverian society] to become a breed assessor. It had always been a goal of mine to do since I went to Germany the first time. I learned a lot myself through all of the training, which took about two years and included a lot of online training due to the pandemic.

 “I absolutely love it.”

“Now I get to do something that I really enjoy, which is just travelling around Australia and meeting really passionate horse breeders that breed dressage horses and show jumpers – they love their horses and want to breed them for the Olympic disciplines. I get to assess foals, undertake mare classifications and mare performance tests, as well as help people and give them advice on the best way forward. Everyone that breeds is obviously really passionate, so I’m meeting like-minded people as well. It’s fantastic. I absolutely love it.”

At 33, Kaitlin is one of the youngest breed assessors out there – and one of few women. “It’s definitely something that the majority of people get into a little later in life. The other thing is, definitely in Europe especially, it’s a male dominated industry. It was a bit tricky to get into it being younger and female, but once I started everyone was really encouraging and I have absolutely loved the process.”

Kaitlin hopes that in the next few years she gets the opportunity to head back to Germany and undertake assessments of horses in the breed’s homeland. “That’s also something that I’m really looking forward to. Hopefully it’s something that I can continue doing for a really, really long time. What I find really exciting, especially with the classifying and the breeding of horses, is a lot of people are breeding their best horses and they’re in their 70s. I just feel like I have still got so much to learn!” EQ

You can find out more about Sevenoaks Farm via their Facebook page.

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