Interview by Christopher Hector & Photos supplied by Simone Pearce and Timo Martis Fotography
I must confess I hadn’t heard of twenty-four-year-old Simone Pearce until she popped up on my Facebook, inviting me to ‘like’ her page, which I did. It’s a starry sort of page, with some very glamorous photos, some even have horses in them. Then a few nights later, I was dining with one of our top riders, and we were talking about the likely makeup of the Australian Team for Rio, ‘I wouldn’t ignore Simone Pearce’, said my usually very well informed friend, she has talent, and she has a good base…
The base, Platinum Stables, has an equally glamorous website (http://platinumstable.com) showing of the state of the art facilities, and the slogan Where Dutch expertise and Oriental culture come together.
Platinum Stables is the dream of Chris and Shirley Wilaras, a couple from Singapore where they are active as project developers of luxurious holiday resorts. Their Goal?
‘We bridge the gap between the dressage sport in The Netherlands and the dressage sport in Singapore, Indonesia and China.’
There are some innovative selling techniques like the promise: when you buy a horse with us you receive seven days of instruction from one of our trainers at your own stable.
And there in the middle of all this luxury is an Australian – Simone Pearce, who seems to have fallen on her feet:
“It’s a little bit of a special situation. It’s an Asian family, who don’t ride, and don’t have anything to do with horses, but their dream is to have horses in Olympic Sport. So they have made this amazing stable and bought some pretty special horses and now I am lucky enough to have found my way here to ride for them.”
“They have bought a lot of young KWPN horses. At the moment I am riding Ferguson, he in theory, hopefully, will be one of the more successful young stallions this year. He is four years old.”
“Then I have two nice five year olds, which I will try for the World Young Horse Championships. Then I have a nice little Grand Prix horse but we are hoping to buy a more internationally competitive horse.”
How did you end up in this fancy stable?
“People think it’s quite funny, they message me on Facebook and say things like it seems you have just popped up, and I think that’s really funny because I’ve spent the last three and half years in Germany training. Originally when I was 17, I came over here to be a working student for a year. That was in 2010.”
“Before that I wasn’t really doing dressage, I was doing a bit of showing. Always riding dressage style, but never competing. When I came over here, I just totally fell in love with it, and it has gone from there. I was at Gestüt Sprehe last year, riding their stallions. I was riding for Sprehe for two years before that with my old boss, then I got offered the job as their stallion rider last year. Then Platinum bought one of the stallions I was riding, and offered me the job here riding the stallion. That’s how I got here…”
You were a show rider in Australia, why did you suddenly pack your top boots and head for Germany?
“To be honest, I didn’t come to ride. I came over to work as a model and a nanny! Then I missed the horses so much that I contacted a stable to see if I could start riding there and it went from there. Everything else fell apart and I always kept with the riding.”
“When I was a working student, it was with Johann and Penny Rockx in The Netherlands. Then I went to Sabine Rueben, and I was with her for two and a half years. When I went to Sabine, I was doing a little bit of cowboy version of medium level, then we found a horse together, he was medium level and I trained it to Grand Prix, and within a year with her help, we started competing in international Grand Prix. That horse was Little Lion, I was very lucky to find Sabine, I have to say.”
“Sabine is working with Sprehe a lot, so I was already riding for them indirectly, and Sabine said, okay, now it has got to a point where I have helped you as much as I can – because she is more of a sales barn – and she wanted me to get the opportunity to further myself. She set it up with Sprehe so I would move there… and then I went to Platinum.”
What is it about dressage that gets you excited?
“Honestly I have to say I don’t do it so much for the sport – I love the sport, I love the feeling of riding a Grand Prix – but the main thing for me is the everyday improvement of the horses. I just love training the horses to Grand Prix.”
So you really don’t want to go to this show in South America next year…
“It would be horrible!” Laughter is never very far away when you are talking with Simone… “Of course I’d love to go, but in dressage, it is not always possible to go for your goal. I have had a lot of experience where you get so close then something happens. Like with Little Lion, last year at a big National Show, he was second in the Grand Prix, with 69%, which I think is good for a home trained, more normal horse. Then a few days later he went lame, and since then we’ve been trying to get him back… In dressage you can’t just say, I want to go to Rio. That is my absolute dream and goal that I hope and pray is possible, but I do it for the feeling, otherwise you kill yourself if it doesn’t happen.”