Story by Christopher Hector and photos by Julie Wilson
Will Enzinger is used to challenges at Werribee’s National Equestrian Centre, tough fences, tough going, but he was facing a tougher one today, standing alone at the mike, he was to sing Christina Perri’s ‘A Thousand Years’.
“I have loved you for a thousand year, I will love you for a thousand more…”
It had been sung at the memorial service for Caitlyn Fischer, and now Caitlyn’s brave parents were standing beside him, as the crowd rose as one to pay tribute to the young life so cruelly cut short. Will need not have worried, he sang perfectly. It was a moving, dignified, and totally appropriate commemoration. Another crucial healing moment for an eventing community that has been ripped apart over the past couple of months…
Caitlyn’s parents, Ailsa Carr and Mark Fischer presented a trophy to the highest placed Young Rider in the Two Star, Molly Barry who rode her off-the-track gelding, La Muso into fifth place.
Molly Barry – here with Ailsa Carr and Mark Fischer – was awarded the Caitlyn Fischer Memorial Trophy
The weekend was also another step to re-establishing the Saddleworld Melbourne International 3DE on a sound footing after the total failure of the oh-so-smart private PR company who took it over two years ago. Oh yes, it was part of a five year contract, with great plans to steal the Adelaide four star, a plan that didn’t last into the second year. Yes, it was lovely how they set it up, but you didn’t need to be that smart to know that it couldn’t possibly work financially.
The new director, Janet Houghton, is producing a no frills event that works, even if she cannot control the weather – it is bitter cold for the three-star dressage, and this year, with the option of a CIC, our horses in contention for Rio are all in the shorter format, with the CCI not quite at the cutting edge.
Shane Rose and CP Qualified have looked Rio bound for about the past twelve months, and each time they come out, they look more assured, the grey Holsteiner gelding looking leaner and more like an eventer, and less like the well-bred, but very careless, showjumper that came out of the Tops Stables…
The horse has a wonderful big loose trot, even if it did trail its hindquarters in the half passes, it was in good company, so did most of them. The counter canter looks easy, while the flying changes are just okay – the way Qualified canters you expect them to be big and expressive. Shane grabs the lead on 38.6, with the C judge, Britain’s Tim Downes particularly enamoured, scoring it 76.15! Christoph Hess has them on a 74.81, with only Bev Shandley preferring Stuart and Pluto Mio.
Pluto, like very fine wine, improves with age. I can remember him rearing and dislodging his then jockey, Katja Weimann, after a test in the Werribee Indoor, back in the days when the dressage and showjumping were held, in merry defiance of FEI regulations, in the big shed. The grey seems to click with Stuart Tinney, and it is a very professional classy test, with particularly splendid transitions, and wonderful counter canter. They finish phase one in second place of 40.30, which is a little harsh from where I am sitting…
The other serious candidate for a Games spot, Parkiarrup Illicit Liaison, has a few contact problems, and while he tosses of a lovely, if totally unwanted, flying change in his counter canter, when Sonja Johnson asks him for the first, it is sticky. The second is fine. They are sitting in fourth place on 49.90 behind Megan Jones and Kirby Park Impress on 49.70.
The CIC contestants then headed off to the showjumping arena, where once again we learnt pretty much what we already knew. Shane and Qualified went clear, Stuart and Pluto went clear and Sonja and ‘Ben’ had a rail. Young Tegan Ashby was clear on Rockingham No Reason, while Megan Jones was also clear on Kirby Park Impress, only to retire on cross country with Impress, as she did with her other CIC entrant, History.
In the CCI***, Judith Clarke grabs the lead on the wonderful (18-year-old) Warmblood, Diablito. This is easy Mum, you just sit back and enjoy the trip. It’s a lovely test for a 41.7 – although Christoph Hess prefers Stuart Tinney’s elegant import, Carlchen. The mare gets a little behind the vertical but she has a wonderful floating canter. They finish on 45, but with a 75.96% from Christoph.
Judy Clarke and Diablito
Amanda Ross and Dicavalli Diesel are seriously flash, a break in the walk hurts as do two not-so-flash flying changes. 45.6.
Stuart Tinney is also holding down fourth spot with Warhawk. The grey Warmblood from New Zealand is in a lovely frame, but he too has problems with the flying changes. They finish on 48.3.
Shane Rose is lying fifth and sixth going into the cross country: on a neat 50 with his homebred, Shanghai Joe, and 51.2 with Glenorchy South Park.
Bitter cold, the occasional drifts of light rain, it’s Werribee, beastly one day, revolting the next…
It is actually a little more civilized the next day for the cross country, I mean at one stage I actually removed a layer of clothing.
It may be a no-frills Werribee, but Ewan Kellett’s fences look great – even if a few of the senior riders questioned whether the three-star was really up to three-star standard.
Sonja Johnson who has ridden more cross country tracks than most, was determined she wasn’t going to take it too lightly, no matter what anyone said:
“I’ve got a number of riders telling me that it is really quite soft. I’ll believe it’s soft when I have galloped home clear and under time. I’ve got old enough that I don’t take anything for granted any more – something I learnt at Beijing is that the hardest fence is the next one I have to jump. That’s very much the philosophy that I am going out with. Towards the end of the course, a number of the combinations are really positively forward. The stumps – I think it’s 15, I’m never good at numbers, the one through the Rose Garden, those are really positive distances, you have to be on your line, you have to be forward because there isn’t room to chip in there. It’s probably not as tough as Sydney, but from the point of view of the horses that are aiming towards Rio, I think it is probably a nice confidence run – hopefully. And the going is some of the best I’ve ever seen here.”
“I’ll probably back off a fair bit when I get to the Mansion Gardens, because with that narrow running track, already it is bogging up badly, and the last thing I want to do is tweak a leg trying to go fast through there. I suspect I will go at normal Sonja and Ben pace until we get there, and then we’ll back off and take it quietly, which is going to cost me some time, but that’s life, I’d rather have a sound horse.”
Amanda Ross and Dicavalli Diesel
Amanda Ross arrived at the finish to a flurry of action, sliding off Diesel as the team swung into action, stripping tack, as the vet checked the gelding’s pulse and the buckets of water were poised for action. Amanda told me this was her normal operating style:
“I just like to get him cooled off and stripped down, all that sort of stuff – I’m a big one for recovery. He was really really good. He has got a massive stride, and I just buried him at fence three and fence six, because I tried to bring him back and all off a sudden the fence is on me – it’s not that he’s going too fast, he just eats the ground, and that’s been probably the only trouble I’ve had reading him. I suppose as you get more experienced at the levels, you can pick them off a rolling stride, which we are getting to do. So I apologized a lot to him, which I tend to do, sorry Diesel, sorry Diesel, sorry Diesel, and he’s like just sit there Muppet, don’t interfere…”
Obviously you’ve clicked with him?
“When I sold the red ones, I said I am not going to ride anything unless it is amazing, and it was a very big call, but I knew the amount of blood, sweat, tears and finance that you put it, it has to be a really great horse, and what do you know? Here it is! So we have clicked, and I love him to death. Probably coming from Shane and Niki Rose, he’s a really positive forward going horse, he doesn’t have any funny quirks, he’s just lovely.”
Still the dressage leader, Judy Clarke and Diablito was not about to surrender the lead without a fight:
“It was good… I had a couple of rough moments because I was very very set on going for the speed, because I knew that if I didn’t go fast, I would lose the win. He’s not a fast horse so I had to really push to get him close, he still had a couple of time penalties, but he was going as fast as he could!”
His dad (Leonardo 68, an imported Hanoverian, a Grand Prix dressage horse that Glennis Barrey used to ride) wasn’t built for speed…
“No, his mother was a New Zealand Thoroughbred but he is just not fast. He is quick in through combinations and things, round corners – he’s balanced and light on his feet, so he makes up for it a little bit. He’ll never be a Thoroughbred, but I wouldn’t want him to be.”
What is next for this extraordinary horse?
“He’s having a spell now, he’s rising nineteen. He really didn’t do anything much in his life until I got him as a ten-year-old. I’m not qualified for Adelaide four-star, I have to do another CCI three-star and there really isn’t one. I couldn’t have done Sydney and Melbourne, it would have been too much for an 18-year-old. I don’t know – the NSW events, Goulburn and Equestriad, but he’ll have a spell now, and I’ll do a bit of work with my young horses.”
Shane Rose rode ‘only’ three horses around Werribee, two in the CCI and one in the CIC, after his second entrant in the CIC, Virgil, stayed home nursing a virus.
Nice day at the office?
“It was an easy weekend, I had to leave one at home. I’m really happy. Niki’s little horse, Glenorchy South Park, was super – a little green at fence 6 abc, but kept poking his nose through the middle and I had a really nice round. Shanghai Joe… I need to go back to the snaffle, I had him in the rubber Pelham and he is just too strong in it. He was just a bit rusty, and with the bit, I had to slow down earlier than I would normally. It wasn’t his best round.”
Shane Rose and CP Qualified
“Qualified was awesome, like really really strong. Super gallop, super brave, super rideable, he felt awesome. He’s lead up heading in towards Rio is spot on, he’s really close on the flat. I was a little annoyed with my test, he just got a little up in the neck when he went into the warmup ring, with all the yellow jackets in the distance, and I couldn’t quite get his neck down and his back up. I think we could take another five or six marks off that test, which is good – going 38 and being disappointed with the test. He’s just going to get better and better. It’s a bit of a shame that Virgil couldn’t make the trip because he’s got a bit of a temperature, hopefully he’ll be right again by the time I get home.”
And Sonja, did the course ride how she thought it would?
“I’m very pissed off with my watch. It didn’t start at Sydney in the CCI on Valentino, and it didn’t start here again either. I lost some time fiddling with that… maybe I need a new one. As a result of that I’ll have a bit of time.”
But you were always planning on getting time…
“That was the plan. You get into the Mansion area and you are the second last horse around there and you know it is going to be mucky, and it was. He jumped fabulously, he’s good.”
Sonja Johnson and Parkiarrup Illicit Liaison
So as the day got rapidly gloomier and colder, Shane was still in the lead on Qualified with just 1.6 time, while Stuart and Pluto were second with 14.8 time. Sonja and Ben had moved up to 3rd with 4.8 time, while the fastest run of the day came from Sonja’s understudy, Shenae Lowings, last month’s Saddleworld Rising Star, who added just 2.4 to her dressage score of 51.5 on Ballyhoo.
In the CCI***, Judy and Diablito were still in the lead with just 5.2 time, while Stuart and Warhawk had moved into 2nd, still on their dressage score. Shane and Shanghai Joe had slipped up to 3rd with just 0.4 time, just in front of Shane and South Park who went clear clear.
On the final day, in the showjumping, it is once more the triumph of the Tinneys. Stuart goes clear clear on Warhawk to snatch victory from Judy Clarke and Diablito who have one down. Tegan Lush has a clear clear on Belfast Mojito to go into third, just in front of Shane and Glenorchy South Park.
Stuart’s daughter, Gemma takes out the Off the Track CCI 1* on Annapurna, who is out of Pluto Mio’s dam, but while Pluto is by Daley K, Annapurna is by the Donnerhall son, Donnerblitz (out of a mare by the good jumping sire, Landadel).
Gemma Tinney and Annapurna
Nice weekend at Werribee for your crew, Stuart?
“It was good, we were pleased with how we all went, Gemma and Anna included.”
All it needed was for Karen to win the raffle… Let’s talk about Pluto and Rio?
“I hope we get to go, that’s number one. He’s going better than he’s ever gone in his life, I’m really pleased with him. I’ve just changed the way I ride him, asking a little bit more of him and he’s really stepped up to the occasion. Hopefully we’ll get at chance to have a go at Rio.”
Are you planning to join Shane at Aachen CIC in the runup?
“No, I pretty much want to do what I did in the runup to the WEG in Normandy, get there, just train a bit. He performed well in Caen, so I’ll be doing much the same.”
Did you think the CIC track was test enough for you, or don’t you criticize course builders now you are one yourself…
Stuart is laughing – “No, I think I try to tell the truth. The track was good. CICs are always difficult time wise for Pluto, he is much more of a three day event horse, because he has such a wonderful gallop. The track was good enough, certainly the jump into the first water, very early in the course, was as big as you’ll get anywhere for a fence into water. There were some nice lines, no I thought it was a nice track.”
Stuart Tinney and War Hawk
You must be pleased with your young horse, Warhawk, winning the CCI?
“He’s lovely, he’s just such a nice horse to deal with and be around and to train. I was thrilled with him. We went all the straight routes everywhere, no problems.”
Are you looking over your shoulder, you might get pushed out of the team for Tokyo…
“If you are talking about Gemma, if I’m going to be pushed out of the team by anyone, that would be a good option. She’s riding the mare really well, they get on together. That was a qualifier she needed to move up the grades, hopefully onward and upward to that combination.”
Stuart Tinney and Pluto Mio
I’m guessing that the mare is a little less tricky than Pluto…
“The thing about Pluto these days is that he is not that tricky any more. He really is quite rideable, very different – it has taken him a while. Anna is similar to him in some ways. She doesn’t ‘go’ quite so much as he does, but they are actually quite similar, luckily we are getting a handle on them and they are going quite well.”
It’s not just the Tinney family, the Three Day at Werribee is looking fairly solid as it heads towards its 60th Birthday, next year.