Story by Chris Hector and Photos by Roz Neave
It has been a wonderful process to see Shane and Niki Rose’s Bimbadeen Park evolving into a flourishing equestrian centre – with plans for more improvements on the go. Since we were there last, a new stable block has been added, the Manchurian Pears that line the now beautifully groomed gravel drive, are a good size and in great colour. There’s a new machine for producing their own feed mix, and the section in front of the stables is about to be asphalted. The staff list has expanded and the whole place has the air of a sweetly tuned, nicely functional machine.
While the focus of the business is on breaking and pre-training the racehorses, Shane and Niki can sit back and enjoy their eventing as a hobby, but a very serious hobby indeed as Shane gears up to take Taurus and Virgil to Europe for some of the really big Horse Trials over there. It’s dressage day at Bimbadeen when we arrive, and Shane is schooling Virgil, while Niki is working with her Young Eventing horse star, Dicavalli Diesel.
The new arrival Olivia
Afterwards, there is time to chat with both of them and I start by asking Niki the leading question:
Are you sick of being Mrs Shane Rose – you were a bit of a star in your own right?
It’s good being Mrs Rose really. I’m still hoping to be successful on my own horses. It’s quieter at the moment now I’ve got a baby, I’ve been cutting down the numbers – but I’ve got a couple that are going well, and it is just a matter of getting them up the grades. I’ve always been a bit of a seller. I had Striking Heights and was offered money for him, he helped buy our property. I’d like to get up there again.
Do you have the right horse?
At the moment I’ve only got two of my own in work. Diesel, who won the six-year-old class at Sydney, he’s Shane’s so he will go to him. I’m having fun with him but I know he is going to be moving to the other side of the barn. I’ve got Riverside Kristy, she seems quite nice so hopefully we’ll keep going, and I’m hoping that Wisteria Lane, who has been out injured, will come back into work, she’s a nice horse.
You enjoy competing in the young horse classes?
I do. I like riding nice horses. I’m pretty fussy with the horses I ride at the moment so the ones I take out are usually pretty nice. It is fun to get them out, I’d probably prefer to be in the three star, but I don’t have anything to do that with right now.
Working her young horse, Niki and Diesel
Do you think the format of the young horse classes needs tweaking?
I definitely think the way it ran at Sydney this year was just too long and strung out. In my mind when I entered, I thought I’d be riding each horse once – I’d get on and do dressage, jump a couple of jumps and that would be it. I didn’t think I was going to do all three phases separately. They’ve definitely got to see how they move, see how they jump, but the format probably needs a little re-tweaking. It is a good class, but I have heard they are not running it again. But it is good to get the young horses out to an event, let them experience a bit of atmosphere.”
It’s lucky that Mary King has disproved the theory that you couldn’t ride cross-country after you had had a baby…
Yes, very true. I was thinking, I’ll just see what happens when I have a baby, but I definitely do still want to ride. I still want to be out there, I don’t think I’ll be giving up any time soon.
And certainly Shane is well and truly at the peak of his career as an eventer, and working hard to make sure he has a good enough dressage score to be in at the finish…
Shane and Virgil
Do you consciously set yourself goals with your dressage?
Absolutely. In the back of my mind I am always thinking of trying to get the score to the mid-thirties, but obviously as I am getting older, I am realising that there is a process that needs to happen, for that to happen. I used to just kick harder and it was always a bit rough. Looking at a horse like Virgil, who has only recently gone three star – when I took him to Sydney 3DE, I was really happy with his total performance on the flat and jumping. I think he ended up on a 49 in the dressage, a score I wasn’t overly happy with. I thought it was probably a mid-forties score…
But you are a rider…
Comparing it with the tests at Melbourne, where we had Christoph Hess, a very experienced international judge who is very in touch with current trends, certainly the test I did for a 42 at Melbourne, if I had done that in Sydney it would have been closer to 50 than 40…
But that is what Christoph gave you, it was the other two judges who liked your Melbourne test…
Okay, but as a group the judges at Melbourne were more enthusiastic and rewarding of good work, than the judges in Sydney. At Sydney I was really happy with Virgil’s level of training and where he was, so for that event I was more interested in the doing the things I could do well, well, and he did most of them. The things that in his training weren’t quite ready, like the flying changes on a circle, that’s a really difficult movement for a horse that is learning flying changes, yes they cost me marks. So there are areas where I can pick marks up.
When I take a more experienced horse I am aiming to have my base score lower than mid-forties, and if I do a good test, I am hoping when I get to Europe this time, I’ll be getting scores in the mid-thirties. And I am certainly going there with a plan for how to achieve that. It’s not just saying, I want a score, and pick a number – I’ve been working on a lot of things that I feel can improve my score. The general movement, the way of going for him is good, but to get those extra scores, it is a matter of fixing things like the halts and the rein backs. Everyone does lots of work on the movements like shoulder in and half pass, but you need to cover all the bases. Like the rider who won recently at Lumühlen, every mark was 7 or above, so if you can get a 7 for every movement, you are on 70% – and surely if you are getting a 7 for everything, there is going to be an 8 or a 9.
To get those better scores I have a goal of not having a bad movement within the test. In the past I have thought the way to get a good score is to go out there and get 10 for extended trot! Then it gets rough… Now I am older, I realise there are other ways to get a big score, with better harmony – that’s a word they are using a lot now ‘harmony’ and ‘flow’, ‘rhythm’ and ‘swing’. Not necessarily bigger movements, but the more I learn about this stuff, the more you have them swinging and connected and when they are in balance, the bigger they move anyway.
Is it hard for guys? Those pretty girls naturally look better on a horse…
Absolutely. You look at Lucinda Fredericks, she is tall and lean and elegant, she just sits on a horse and she looks good. Look at blokes like Clayton and myself, it doesn’t look quite that way. Christopher Burton has got that beautiful thin, tall look, it looks great. We are disadvantaged in that way, but obviously there are things that I am able to do cross country, that some of the others perhaps can’t. You can’t look at what you haven’t got, I’ve got to look at what I have got.
You are never going to be shaped liked Lucinda Fredericks…
No way, I am as skinny as I get without passing out. I know exactly how much I weigh, I’m basically 80 kilos, if I go under 78 kilos, I start to get faint.
Do you run or anything like that?
Not any more. After I broke my legs, I don’t run as well as I used to, and I don’t get a lot of time either. When I run I actually end up getting heavier, because I am quite a big-framed guy, I put on muscle quickly. Eating less is the main thing – work hard, then consciously eat half of what I want. It’s not fun but it works.
Looking at the overall scores we’ve had at Sydney and Melbourne this year, on those scores we seem to have dropped a little behind the rest of the world with our dressage… I watched both those events and I didn’t really see a test that would have come out and shone at a WEG or an Olympic Games…
I think you are right. Stuart (Tinney)certainly has the potential, I don’t think his test at Sydney was quite as good as it had been. I think he was quite busy with other things at Sydney, but certainly he has the ability on Pluto Mio to produce that sort of test. The black horse that Megan (Jones) rode at Melbourne, Flowervale Maserati, that was a really nice test – the horse has only just gone three-star and it is going to get stronger. Megan had some problems in the showjumping, but that is probably related to the fact that the horse has only just gone three-star and it was pretty heavy going. Hopefully Megan can get that horse going, certainly it has the potential to threaten them.
Team management, Prue Barrett and Brett Parbery, are certainly on to it and they are looking at a heap of things we can do to improve. I’ve heard a few of their ideas and I am really looking forward to working on some of the ways they think they can improve us. Certainly right now in Australia, there doesn’t seem to be the depth that there has been. I’ve been quite critical of our youth at the moment. I’m no longer what anyone would call ‘young’ but I remember when I was a kid, I think I was 22, 23, when I was on the squad for Atlanta, and on that squad was Wendy Schaeffer, who was 21, Niki Richardson, who was my age – by the next championships, Olivia Bunn was there, again low 20s, Burton was in his low 20s. We had lots and lots of good young riders, but since Chris Burton there hasn’t been enough young kids coming through – for whatever reason: desire, ability, opportunity. I don’t know what has made such a big gap, but Chris would be nearly 30 (actually Christopher is 31) and there are not a whole lot younger than him coming through.
And the big question is why? If anything, riders coming through have access to better events, better-bred horses, there is instruction available…
Absolutely. The number of riders entering events has massively increased over the past couple of years, but at the elite level, the numbers haven’t increased. I’m not quite sure how to fix that.
When we look at the dressage, perhaps since London there has been an ebb in the number of horses. Some of the horses that were geared towards London were towards the end of their careers, a few have finished and the riders have younger horses. For whatever reason, you are right, the top few at Sydney although they were good tests, they weren’t great. I think I can say this because I was in the top few, but I know that test of 49, whether you take it as equal across the world, it is still not mid thirties, which is what people in Europe are getting. I think Jock (Paget, winner at Badminton) was on 39 at Badminton, and at Lumühlen, it was 39 to win, so we do need to get better.
Shane and Taurus
On the other hand, I feel Taurus is certainly capable of mixing it with the best…
And he is sound?
Yes, he’s been really good since he’s come back into work. He’s done a couple of One Day Events and went really well. A bit rusty, certainly his preparation is now gearing towards Burghley. He is starting galloping now, and fingers crossed, I can keep him together this time.
Let’s hope you are right, but if he dropped off the planet, Virgil is looking pretty good for a WEG run…
He is an amazing animal, physically
and mentally. On the flat, it is amazing how quickly he develops. He was really struggling with his flying changes before Sydney, he had a couple of mishaps in his preparation and had to have time off, and so he wasn’t ready to do a better test at Sydney. Since then he has only been back in a few weeks, and like today, he did five or six changes and they were all clean. Maybe not for 8s or 9s, but a clean change is a lot better than a bucking late one. He is quite an amazing horse that once he understands something he picks up on it really well.
He looks as if he would jump pretty well anything you put in front of him…
His jumping ability is amazing. Because he has such a big jump and he is so careful, I need to be careful about where I put him, and make sure he stays confident. In twelve months if Taurus for whatever reason wasn’t able to get there, Virgil would certainly be on track to push for a place in the team. If he was called upon, he wouldn’t let anyone down.