Heath Ryan shines at Equitana
Equitana Asia Pacific 2008 has come to an end. What an action packed four days it was. The crowds flooded in to the new venue at Melbourne show grounds despite the schizophrenic weather which included heavy rain, hail, gusty winds and occasional sunshine.
The Dressage Spectacular on Saturday night was a feast of Dressage excellence. The program featured the Grand Prix Freestyle which was won by Heath Ryan on Dr Margaret Evan's imported Rubinstein stallion, Regardez Moi with 72.65%.
Clear winner Heath Ryan on Regardez Moi of both the Grand Prix and the Freestyle Picture Nicola Turner
Heath Ryan on Regardez Moi was a clear winner of both the Grand Prix and the Freestyle with a super harmonious and balanced Piaffe/Passage tour. If there were any weaknesses it was in the flying changes. Mary Seefried commented: “The harmony was confirmed in his freestyle to music from Pirates of the Caribbean. This music especially supports the drama of the choreography for the piaffe/passage highlight.”
Rachel Sanna demonstrated her years of experience when riding the young stallion Jaybee Alabaster. This combination is improving at every outing . Chair Mary Seefried said Jaybee Alabaster was a little unconcentrated in the GP. “However Rachel kept him on song in the freestyle and the level of difficulty in the freestyle was very much suited to his stage of competition experience. This brought her a well deserved second place in the Freestyle.”
Tango ridden by Mary Hanna is a horse full of potential. He is still young and the atmosphere was a little overwhelming for him in the Grand Prix. As the Freestyle had too many mistakes the pair had a drop in placing to 5th.
Come to Me ridden by Charlotte Pedersen is a big moving horse and had a balanced and expressive canter tour, but loses suppleness in the trot tour. “However the Freestyle showed an improvement in flow and relaxation and she improved to third place”, Mary Seefried said.
The crowd were also treated to Danish Dressage champion, Andreas Helgstrand (2008 Olympic Team Bronze Medallist), who performed a freestyle to music riding Dr. Kerry Mack’s Weltmeyer stallion Whisper. Andreas is also famous for his 2006 World Equestrian Games Freestyle on the grey mare Blue Hors Matinee.
Andreas Helgstrand performing a clinic in Melbourne
More on Equitana
Equitana was the ultimate Equestrian retail experience. It is the largest single collection of equine goods and services in the Southern Hemisphere. Over 300 exhibition stands offered shoppers a smorgasbord of equestrian products.
Equitana 2008 in a new venue
Equitana also provided the most diverse Equine educational opportunities. There were 300 educational sessions on every aspect of horsemanship in every imaginable discipline.
There were clinics with Eventing Silver Medallist Clayton Fredericks, Linda and Pat Parelli, Olympic Jumping reserve Chris Chugg, Danish Dressage star Andreas Helgstrand and an All Stars clinic featuring 7 top horsemen from various disciplines.
The competition programme was also jam-packed. The wide array of competition events included Intermediate 1 and Grand Prix Dressage, The 3 evening shows, including the Dressage Spectacular were sell-outs each filling over 4,500 seats in the Grand Pavilion.
The Sunday (late afternoon) All-Stars clinic was simply hysterical. The All Star Clinic was a gathering of experts in 7 disciplines - all coming together, under the same umbrella to share ideas and training methods. The clinic featured Chris Chugg (showjumping), Clayton Fredericks (Eventing),Sam Gairdner (Polo), Brett Parbery (Dressage), Alan Hannaford (Cutting/Campdrafting), Warwick Schiller (Reining) and Guy McLean (a category all of his own), all of whom demonstrated and explained their particular horse sport.
The real entertained started when they all swapped horses.
Brett Parbery swapped horses with reining champion Warwick Schiller. Within seconds Brett discarded the German training scale and was executing some high speed spinning and sliding stops. Warwick rode some Dressage movements and looked at ease with it all - except the sitting trot! All these established horsemen were able to ride each other’s horses very well showing that a great horseman is a great horseman – although there were plenty of laughs to be had along the way. When they were given their own horses back - free time was declared and it became a case of boys and their toys gone wild - all in the arena at once, and the crowd loved it. The Dressage horse played polo and jumped, the Jumping horse was working like a campdrafter, Guy McLean was getting his horse to sit down so he could pick the ball up off the ground to throw it to the others, the polo player and campdrafter were playing cat and mouse with each other. If they weren’t all so skilled it would have been chaos!
Equitana 2008 was HUGE success and a great triumph by Definitive Events who put together this logistical nightmare and made it seem easy.
Well done organisers, instructors, competitors, exhibitors and everyone who braved the freezing Melbourne weather to be a part of Equitana 2008. We look forward to 2010.
For full competition results and all Equitana information please see the web site www.equitana.com.au/
German Christoph Hess coaching in Australia
By Nicola Turner
Christoph Hess Judge / Coach Workshops were scheduled for Victoria, Sydney, Brisbane and finally Perth (Tuesday 25th of November). One word can describe Christoph’s first Judge / Coach Workshop on his Australian Tour “Super” or in Christoph’s accent “soopa”.
For anybody who has attended one of Christoph’s workshops, this is a commonly used phrase that Christoph uses to describe both the horse and rider combination when they work so well together.
With Victoria his first stop, the 90+ Riders, Judges and Coaches alike were all impressed with his easy going manner, clear explanation and simple training techniques to ensure the horse or athlete, as Christoph explains, and rider as happy together as possible by finding the balance and rhythm between each other. Christoph also stressed the need for the horse to ‘seek’ the bit!
All riders were spontaneous in their enthusiasm and appreciation of the opportunity to work so closely with Christoph Hess and improve their techniques.
Christoph Hess had enthralled everybody with his candour and humour and spoke freely about how he approaches and enjoys training riders and horses and not necessarily only the elite. Something to remember.
Christoph Hess working in Victoria
(Source: www.equestrian.org.au/)
All text edited by Claartje van Andel dressagedirect from Nicola Turner at www.equestrian.org.au/
