Story – Chris Hector and Photos – Roz Neave
Breeding horses is fun; it’s selling what you’ve bred that often hurts. As a breeder nothing hurts worse than a good horse you’ve bred being wasted, for one reason or another, failing to realise the potential that you KNOW it has.
That is why we were just so happy, when Laura Rowe and her mother, Anita came round to check out a four year old mare we had for sale – Winsome (conceived with frozen semen from the Weltmeyer son, Wenckstern and out of a lovely Thoroughbred mare, Cava Lass). Winnie is exquisite, but there is no denying that she is also petite -just like Laura. And the minute the fourteen-year-old got on her, it was obvious that they had clicked.
The magic to my ears came from Anita who explained that while they were looking for a horse, part of the budget had been set aside for the horse to receive eight weeks training with Laura’s instructor, Michelle Strapp. Bliss. Here was a parent, actually a parent with way above average equestrian knowledge, who realises that getting professional help right from the start is vital, and who also picks one of the most talented professional instructors Australia has to offer (actually I think Michelle is an international class instructor in any company!)
And -of course- along with the vet check, Winnie had to be ridden and assessed by Michelle before the deal went forward. Again, how nice to have your horse given a pre-sale assessment from someone who really knows what she is talking about!
Winsome has always been a sweet horse, and she has been carefully prepared. Broken in by Ian (‘Clancy’) Batty who always seems to produce sensible, confident horses, she was then ridden by two excellent dressage riders, Rebecca Fenner and Samantha Bartlett (oh yes, with the finishing touches supplied by lunger extraordinaire Roz Neave).
Michelle Strapp takes a spin on Winnie…
It was no surprise when she gave Michelle a lovely ride, although, as you can see, Michelle was quick to spot her weaknesses as well as her strengths…
“When you first hop on, the first thing you notice is that she’s got a good mouth, a good attitude. She was a bit spooky with the horse working behind her, that was no issue. When I started working her for a while, she loosened in the neck and opened her frame, and she feels like she’s got a good canter to jump. The canter has buoyancy, it has actually got some jump about it, and easy for a young rider because she is very comfortable in that short canter.”
And of course the beauty of the situation is that Michelle knew well, what sort of horse her young pupil should be looking for…
“Sometimes when a young rider starts out on a young horse, they are better off with one that naturally canters short rather than having one of these big canters that they can’t organize and get the horse to sit back on its hocks.”
And with the plus comes the minus…
“That shorter canter is a real bonus for a young girl taking on a young horse, however the big canter needs to be developed. That’s really important to produce the jump.”
“The mare is a little crooked to the left, she likes to put her right shoulder out, and her left hind leg in, but all horses are a little bit crooked and that is just something you continually work on. This is a very uncomplicated horse to ride, really uncomplicated. It will become extremely uncomplicated as it goes on.”
Now poor little Winnie may have had the beginnings of a good dressage education, but jumps were something she knew nothing about. Still she is a cooperative little thing, and if the lady sitting in the saddle said keep on going over that thing, she would at least try- which as Michelle pointed out, was about all she could be expected to do.
“As far as jumping is concerned, she has no idea what to do, yet her attitude was honest. She was very wavy coming in the first time but when she did arrive at the fence with some momentum and a little bit of an open stride, she actually felt super. She was really cute through the neck, took the rein, felt good through the wither – she feels like she naturally wants to come up through the wither.”
“When we did the plank, that’s always interesting, she came round to the plank, and I expected her to stop three or four strides out, and even though she fell over it, I’d prefer that when I am trying out a horse for a young rider. She didn’t spook, she didn’t panic, she didn’t launch herself into the air.”
“Then she came round again, and we put the rail up knowing she wouldn’t even see it – she doesn’t know how to look for a fence – and she wore it. The next time round, I got there a little short in her canter which made it hard for her because she was really at the base, but she did what she could to jump it. She was getting a bit tired, but she tried really hard to jump it, and she did it in nice technique. She didn’t feel like she was crooked or hanging a leg, and then she cantered off with a really cute canter. She has a natural way of going so it would be really easy for the young rider to get on to the next fence. I don’t think it would take her long at all to learn to jump because she has a nice attitude. And attitude is everything. She is uncomplicated to ride and her movement will only keep on getting better. I think there is movement in there, it is just a matter of getting her straighter and looser.”
“This horse is nice because she is so pleasant and she is naturally soft in herself, yes she’ll be stiff when you first get on because she is spooky but very uncomplicated. That makes it fairly easy to assess them.”
Then Laura took over the reins, and her smile just got wider and wider as she and the little mare floated around the arena. Winnie had her new home!
PRE-SALE CHECK with Michelle Strapp
Assessing a horse, would you rather see them free jumping or ride them?
“If there is an option to see them jump loose. I’ll take advantage of that. However I’d much prefer to sit on them and have a feel. It’s the feel to the fence and the rideability of the canter – it doesn’t matter how freaky the jump if the rideability is not there, and the attitude is not there.”
How much can you tell in twenty minutes?
“What I’d say with her – if I was going out to ride ten horses and I rode her; you would purchase her, knowing there is a position for her; probably as a C or D grade championship horse -there’s not enough scope for a World Cup horse.”
If she was going to be the World Cup champion, would you have known it on the first fence?
“Not necessarily, but what I would have felt is the canter that takes you to the fence. As you canter to the fence on those super horses, you feel, oh god, there is a jump in here, it just needs to know how to get from one side to the other.”
“The canter she’s got is great, you only have to open it. She’s only a baby; she’ll have a great canter. When I did the big canter and came back to the short canter; that was very easy for me to ride the small circles, put my reins in one hand and ride a small circle, and she’d come back and sit back, and that needs to be that easy for me, to teach a junior to ride it. It is hard for me to go from a big canter to a small canter; then I wouldn’t even try to teach a young rider how to do it.”
Is attitude to a fence something you can read in a ten-minute ride?
“The attitude that they are willing to jump – you can basically read that. Most horses when they first start jumping. If they start to spook and get rigid in their bodies, even if they have a super jump, you can’t fix them. You’ve got to feel the softness in their body. I don’t care if they are a little bit awkward. It’s what I’m learning with these Warmbloods riding dressage, when you sit on them they’ve got to have the softness through their body. Even with Mickey Mouse, we spent hours trying to get him soft before a class, yet you sit on something like WS Scandal, and I couldn’t ride a bad fence, I just couldn’t. You sit on all these others and you say ‘oh it felt a bit stiff off the ground, let’s try and change the canter, let’s try and do a better release’ but when you sit on something like Scandal, you are the most wonderful rider in the world. You can man-make horses, but when it comes to the elite, you are not going to be up there. You can’t always be perfect and have that perfect feel, they have to come to the party too.”