2006 New Zealand Dressage Championships

Long Trip Worth the Effort

March 6, 2006

South Island riders were rewarded for making the long trip north to Taupo for the Bates National Dressage Championships. Yesterday was devoted to the finals of the season’s challenges for which competitors had qualified at events throughout the country.

Fifteen-year-old Nelson school girl Emma Malcolm led the Elementary entries on her imported Australian-bred warmblood Donnerheim. The win is the more remarkable, as Malcolm, who also has two horses competing at Open Medium level, only got the nine-year-old six months ago. After a couple of outings last season, this year they have swept the boards, winning the North and South Islands Elementary level titles, the Young Rider championship, and championships at Canterbury, Wellington and Marlborough. Today (Saturday) they are the leading qualifiers for the national Elementary crown.

Blenheim rider Laurel Cross and her nine-year-old mare, Winter Acacia, won the Open Medium Challenge, adding to a series of successes over the past few seasons. It was a good win for Cross, because she stood above Olympic riders Kallista Field (Pahiatua) on her homebred Waikiwi and Louisa Hill (Clevedon) on Bates Donner-Grandeur.

Penny Castle (Palmerston North) is a former international representative and winner of the country’s supreme award in 1993. Now she’s coming back to top level, this time on Veritas, a nine-year-old brown gelding, on which yesterday she was the top qualifier in the Prix St Georges and winner of the Vetpro Advanced Challenge Final. Second in the challenge was another South Islander, Angela Fergusson on Monique III, who won their South Island title recently.

Young riders are prominent at this tournament, with Brigette Learmonth (Kumeu) on Grunelius Legacy, another Australian import, winning the Medium Challenge and topping the qualifiers for today’s championship ahead of Christchurch rider Sally Field-Dodgson. Field-Dodgson is another former winner of the country’s national championship, and now rides Amberleigh Elite.

Betty Brown, a member of the board of Dressage New Zealand , had a good day, winning the Preliminary Challenge on the Australian-bred Kinnordy Gym, before the pair went on to place second in the Novice challenge, having upgraded mid-season. Brown and her husband Greg are Californians who came here in 1976 on their honeymoon and decided to return the following year, buying a dairy farm at Waverley in Taranaki. Brown, having done her share of the hard graft on the farm, now does the administration. She has recently been awarded a SPARC Officials Scholarship to help her gain her international judging qualifications, planning to go to a judge’s clinic in Del Mar in April, before travelling on to Europe when she will be mentored by international judges at the Munich dressage championships in Germany .

The leading qualifier at Preliminary level for today’s championship was Fiona Fraser on Dream Gift MH. Fraser was groom to Olympic and World Champion Blyth Tait’s Ready Teddy, before returning home and joining the police force with which she serves in Pukekohe.

The Novice Challenge went to Jutta Rosenblatt on Vollrath Dornkaat, bred by her husband Bernie Maubach at their Wanganui-based Hanoverian and Warmblood stud.

Raglan stud owner Jody Hartstone and her 19-year-old imported German stallion, Landioso continued their good form from Thursday, with a convincing win in the Lion Foundation Grand Prix, which was an official international competition, but their score of 63.83% was just short of the 64% required for a certificate of capability towards the World Equestrian Games in August. Bill Noble (Ardmore) and his locally-bred Vincent St James were second on 62.66%, with Blenheim pair Franzi van Bruggen and the Swiss-bred Cavour in third on 57.42%. The class, judged by FEI Official Judges led by Stephen Clarke (GBR), was also the final of the Equine Herbals Challenge, which title went to Hartstone and her mount.

Related Links
Hartstone, 2006 New Zealand Dressage Champion on her “Professor”
First Shots Fired at Dressage
Long Trip Worth the Effort
Top Programme at New Zealand Dressage Championships
Golden Year for Dressage in New Zealand