David started his riding career as an eventer but in 2012 rode in his first Showjumping World Cup on Explore. His first victory followed in 2014 on Dyranta.

David won the 2014 Australian Showjumping Championship on Dyranta at Werribee, beating Tim Clarke and Caltango into second place. It was a very close finish.

“She’s scopey, careful and really tough,” said Dave, as he drove home from Victoria. “She jumped well the first day and was coming fifth, the next day she jumped clear which put me second overall going into the final day. Tim, who was leading, had one down in the first round of the Grand Prix whilst Dy and I jumped clear moving us into first position. I was nervous going into the final round but she felt she was jumping well and I was confident she wanted to jump a clean round.” And so she did.

The Werribee track was designed by Luc Musette and David had been excited at the idea of jumping courses created by the Belgian who was in Australia for the first time.

“He’s built for various Global Champion Tours in Europe this year. For this event I thought he built tough, technical but careful tracks, which seem to be the trend, and we had to ride to a plan as he had a few distance options.”

By Kashmir van het Schuttershot out of Mavanta, the mare was imported as a four-year-old by the Martins (Bryan, Linda and daughter Bonnie) who run River Ridge Equestrian Park in Wilberforce. Bonnie remembers when she first saw her in Europe.

“She had a foal at foot and was unbroken, so they took her out of the stable and free jumped her for us. Right away we knew she had to come home to Australia. We already had Bellerose, her full sister competing, who was proving to be very talented so we were pleased to see it seemed to run in the family. We would have loved to have purchased her foal, too, but it had already been sold. The deal was that Dy was to be broken prior to being sent to quarantine. She and another horse of ours, Top Lady, then spent six months in quarantine outside of London as they’d left Holland and arrived there the day Australia went into EI lockdown.”