{"id":26344,"date":"2016-04-11T12:33:37","date_gmt":"2016-04-11T02:33:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/?p=26344"},"modified":"2016-12-06T14:11:18","modified_gmt":"2016-12-06T03:11:18","slug":"iahp-april-rider-of-the-month-kristy-oatley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/2016\/04\/iahp-april-rider-of-the-month-kristy-oatley\/","title":{"rendered":"IAHP April Rider of the Month"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"admasKRISTY OATLEY<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kristy confirmed that she is well and truly in the running for a place in the Australian dressage team to go to Rio, with a 75% in the freestyle at one of Holland\u2019s prestige World Cups \u2013 s\u2019Hertogenbosch. This time round, Kristy\u2019s Games contender is the Hanoverian gelding, Du Soleil who is by the great De Niro, out of a mare by Caprimond, the two stallions that made German breeder, Burkhard Wahler famous.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had Du Soleil coming on two years, he\u2019s done four Grand Prix now. He\u2019s an extremely talented horse, who seriously never wants to do wrong. He is extremely honest \u2013 basically he thrives every day on work. He loves coming out and being ridden, and having things done with him the whole time. He\u2019s very much a people\u00a0person.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Oatley<\/em><\/p>\n

Kristy and Du Soleil at s’Hertogenbosch \/ Photo: Dirk Caremans<\/em><\/p>\n

What had he done before you got him?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHe competed as a six-year-old at the World Championships with Saskia Lieben-Seutter, Holga Finken\u2019s wife. She had him, then he was sold to Sven Rothenberger and he had him for one year, then he went back to Finkens, and that\u2019s where I bought\u00a0him.\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve had a lot of wonderful horses, how do you rate this one?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s probably the best horse I have ever ridden as a package, the whole package. I mean I love riding Ronan every day, he\u2019s great, I loved riding Quando and Bolero, but this one, he just has absolutely everything. He is a beautiful horse to ride, you can control every step that you ride, and in the test, I\u2019ve gone from Ronan who is a HUGE horse, to having a pocket rocket underneath me, where Ronan is hardly the pocket rocket, he\u2019s\u2026 I don\u2019t know how you\u2019d like to describe him\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s more like an unguided missile\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Luckily she laughs. \u201cThank you, that\u2019s actually a good way to put it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDu Soleil is just lovely, he goes back to being the type like Oskar who I started out with, who was like\u00a0that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Does the fire still burn, you still want to get out and ride Grand Prix?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cOh! Most definitely, otherwise I wouldn\u2019t be doing it. When you have a nice bunch of horses underneath you, which I have at the moment, then it is fun. I\u2019ve got the family behind me. My husband takes care of the kids so I can go to shows, then when I am at home, he\u2019s off working, so it is a bit of give and take. It\u2019s a big thing on the family for me to ride, and for him to work, it is a lot of organization, and we do it because we want to support each other. I certainly still want to keep on\u00a0riding.\u201d<\/p>\n

You are still working with Sjef Janssen?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cYes, still with Sjef.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s the coach you get along the best\u00a0with?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t had that many coaches. I\u2019ve had the quality and not the quantity. I\u2019ve had in Australia, Heath and Rozzie, and now in Germany, I\u2019ve had Mr Rehbein, Mrs Rehbein, and now\u00a0Sjef.\u201d\"SjefKristy\"<\/p>\n

Sjef, Kristy and the unguided missile…<\/em><\/p>\n

Sjef fits in with Mr Rehbein\u2019s teachings?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe fundamental basics are exactly the same, going from Mr Rehbein to Sjef, everything is always correct, everything is through, very straight forward. Working on the basics, and that the horses are through, there is no difference in how Mr Rehbein did it then, in the basics, to Sjef.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sjeff once said to me that most rider\u2019s timing was wrong and that it took him at least twelve months to get their reactions to where he needed it in his system \u2013 did you find that?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cSjef said to me when I first came to him, it will take two years to teach someone his system, and I think basically it did take that long. I\u2019ve been with Sjef coming up six years now.\u201d<\/p>\n

You said it\u2019s basically the same as Mr Rehbein\u2019s system, but if it has taken two years to master Sjef\u2019s system, what are the differences?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are different things, Sjef concentrates very much on the preparation for every movement, which I didn\u2019t work on as much back then. Of course, Mr Rehbein died in 1997, I was 17 when he died. I had 13 years then with Mrs Rehbein, so of course, you lose things in between. I find every time I go to Sjef that I am not as concentrated at home as I am when I am with Sjef. You get put back on your ball, that\u2019s why you have a trainer, otherwise you wouldn\u2019t need\u00a0one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Are you serious about going to the Games?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to, most definitely. I\u2019ve done my two qualifiers with Du Soleil, I\u2019ve got four scores under my belt now with him, according to the selection criteria. We have to stay in the top eight now to be able to go to the two\u00a0qualifiers.\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019d really like to go to another Olympics?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI would love to go to another Olympics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWhy\u2026 why, because I would really like to do well this time! (Kristy is giggling at the memory of her somewhat spectacular ride with Ronan at the WEG.) There you go\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

And it is a perfect line to end with \u2013 good luck!<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\"sootha<\/p>\n

Each Rider of the Month receives a prize supplied by IAHP.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This month the Rider of the Month receives a 30g tybe of Sootha Paste valued at $20.00.<\/em><\/p>\n

Contains B-group vitamins, magnesium and tryptophan for horses. These nutrients are necessary for general metabolism, normal appetite and growth, healthy skin and muscle, function of nervous system and formation of red blood cells.<\/p>\n

As Kristy is based overseas, this prize has been donated to Riding for the Disabled Victoria.\"IAH-Banner\"<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KRISTY OATLEY Kristy confirmed that she is well and truly in the running for a place in the Australian dressage team to go to Rio, with a 75% in the freestyle at one of Holland\u2019s prestige World Cups \u2013 s\u2019Hertogenbosch. This time round, Kristy\u2019s Games contender is the Hanoverian gelding, Du Soleil who is by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1186,1187,512],"class_list":["post-26344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dressage","tag-iahp","tag-international-animal-health-products","tag-kristy-oatley"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26344"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30635,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26344\/revisions\/30635"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}