While
Belgium is screaming for good quality horses, dressage
riders from Australian claim victory with products from
this modest country known for its chocolates and "french"
fries. Former Australian Grand Prix dressage champion
Mary Hanna is currently wielding the axe on the young
dressage horse show scene. With the Belgian warmblood
Rituel she captures victory after victory, throwing
high notes above 70%. At the 2000 Diana Ferrari Australian
Dressage Championships the pair won the Rod Barker Memorial
Cup as they were able to gather the highest score of
the event, 70.56%. "It is really nice to win an
Elementary Championship on him. It is the first time
I've won a National Championship that's not at FEI level,"
Hanna told.
Rituel, by Weltmeyer II out of Erika (by Wendekreis)
was bred by Dirk Goovaerts from the Campine area in
Belgium. Through the brokerage of Stefan van Ingelgem,
he was exported to Australia as a foal but already came
into Hanna's possession when he was a five week old
colt. Rituel is a stallion approved for the Australian
warmblood horse association. Many stallions have to
deal with the combination of breeding and showing, even
Rituel. "I was really careful to take him to a lot of
shows before we started to serve. As it turned out,
now he is serving, he is just a lamb, and we could probably
hand serve millions of mares, and it wouldn't worry
him, but I don't want to do that because of the physical
problems you get with breeding stallions - so I'll stick
with the frozen semen. Mentally it is no problem at
all," Hanna says.
Momentarily Rituel is being prepared for FEI level
and although he only turns six in 2000 he already knows
many FEI tricks. "He can already do lots of more
advanced work, you aren't allowed to call the tricks.
I keep thinking, how am I going to get to the next stage,
then all of a sudden something falls into place, and
it all starts happening. I'm pretty confident he'll
go Grand Prix." And that's how Rituel's future looks
like.
While
Belgium is screaming for good quality horses, dressage
riders from Australian claim victory with products from
this modest country known for its chocolates and "french"
fries. Former Australian Grand Prix dressage champion
Mary Hanna is currently wielding the axe on the young
dressage horse show scene. With the Belgian warmblood
Rituel she captures victory after victory, throwing
high notes above 70%. At the 2000 Diana Ferrari Australian
Dressage Championships the pair won the Rod Barker Memorial
Cup as they were able to gather the highest score of
the event, 70.56%. "It is really nice to win an
Elementary Championship on him. It is the first time
I've won a National Championship that's not at FEI level,"
Hanna told.
