In New Zealand, this green paradise on the other side of the globe, horses always played an important role, especially for their farmers. But it was only in the 1970s that this country was able to send riders to international championships in the Olympic disciplines jumping (Montréal Olympics 1976) and a bit later in three-day- eventing (Lexington World Championships 1978). Mark Todd’s double Olympic gold with the diminutive Charisma in the 1980s raised the popularity of equestrian sport and NZ sport horses worldwide. Since then three-day-eventers, two and four legged, are highly regarded competitors at every major competition.
The third Olympic discipline, dressage, did not develop at a similar speed. Like in other Commonwealth countries it used to be a less popular discipline for different reasons. There were not many good dressage trainers available and the national breeds less suitable for dressage than the other disciplines. For a long time dressage in New Zealand remained a discipline for some real freaks, although the legendary Charisma regularly excelled in this first part of eventing and was himself trained up to Prix St. Georges. But over the past decade much has changed and improved for dressage in New Zealand, which is growing in all aspects.
In 1996 the first dressage horse bred in New Zealand competed in the Olympics: the small chestnut Mosaic, by the imported Hanoverian Witzbold and previously trained and competed by Sharon Field, was shown in Atlanta by Australian Mary Hanna. Two years later New Zealand was able to send its first dressage team to a WEG. In this team were two NZ bred horses and the youngest competitor of the whole field, 18-years old Kallista Field. Another two years later Field became the first dressage rider from NZ representing her country at the Olympic Games in dressage. Kallista not only took part in the Sydney Games, but surprised the experts by performing well on a Hanoverian mare bred in NZ, Waikare (by Witzbold – Rocky Mountain xx), reaching the Grand Prix Spécial.
This was a tremendous boost for dressage in a country so far away from the sport's centre in Europe. It showed that it can be done, even at a very young age and being almost unknown to most on a domestic bred horse.
Kallista is only one and maybe the most remarkable of an increasing number of rather young riders in New Zealand dedicating themselves to dressage. Another is Jody Hartstone, who worked hard to get where she is today: One of NZ’s leading dressage riders and studmaster of her own Karioi Stud, home of outstanding dressage sires from Europe.
The now 32-year old Jody started riding at the early age of 5. Unlike in Europe, where children usually start riding in a club by taking lessons, at the other end of the world youngsters are often a bit on their own at first. Every system has its advantages and in NZ children first learn to hang on in every situation and a bit later how to sit properly through the popular Pony Club. It provides the necessary structure and teachers. Early specialisation is rather seldom seen and it was no different in Jody’s case.
She did the usual activities like Pony Club Games and eventing with her pony Aladin’s Lad. Nothing initially indicated that Jody would turn to dressage, not even in 1995 when she started to work for the owners of Belmont Farms in Wellington, Mick and Sandy Fryatt, who became her first great supporters. They gave Jody their very experienced CCI***- horse Belmont Warendorf to compete on. Warendorf was a quality eventer, well bred by the imported Hanoverian sire Winnebago, sire of Mark Todd’s Olympic jumper Bago, and highly placed with Sandy in NZ’s most important three-day- events earlier.
Jody did well on the oldie and competed as captain of the Waikito team in the NZPCA eventing championships. But when it was time for the horse to retire the Fryatts offered Jody to try out their chestnut stallion Belmont Golden Boy by Ramzes II, a KWPN horse going back to the famous Anglo Arab Ramzes. This little horse, aged 10, hadn't done much due to a leg injury. He proved to be very influential on Jody’s career as a dressage rider and studmaster.
Knowing not much about dressage and stallions Jody took “Mr. B,” as Belmont Golden boy was nick named, to her parents’ home in Raglan. The following three years she learnt a lot about both games and the well mannered and easy tempered chestnut helped her very much in getting to know how to train and handle a stallion. Successful in dressage from the beginning Jody adapted to this discipline by storm. She upgraded Mr. B from novice to Prix St. Georges level within some years, placing highly in the most important CDIs of Australia, Brisbane and Sydney and winning the NZ Championships for advanced horses.
Belmont Golden Boy was licensed with the NZ Warmblood Studbook and has produced a number of very good offspring since.
When the Fryatts, Mr. B’s owners, moved to Great Britain in 1998 Jody luckily was able to buy one half and shares the other with Sandy Fryatt’s father, Howard Hunter.
Her first dressage horse retired as the “Advanced Horse of the Year” in 2004, having been one of the most consistent and successful small tour horses the country ever had. A year earlier Jody had already realised a dream in purchasing Golden Boy’s successor.
Jody, who spent some of NZ’s winters in Europe, trained in Great Britain with Bill Noble and groomed for the Irish three-day-event team at the 1998 WEG in Rome. In 2003 she was over in Europe again to watch dressage at the famous CHIO Aachen. There her Dutch friend Birgitt van der Eijken, who had bought the Holsteiner Grand Prix stallion Landioso not long before, picked her up and took her to her stables. Jody saw Landioso, who, according to her "has a certain aura around him and eyes that would melt any girl’s heart." She fell in love with him straight away.
Landioso, a typical Landgraf I son with a nice head and good conformation, was already 16 and had been a very successful sire at Birkhof Stud in South Germany as well as a Grand Prix horse before he was sold to the Netherlands. Jody never thought or intended of buying such a classy horse, but she had to have this picture of a stallion: “I never dreamt I could import a Grand Prix horse, let alone a stallion, but as soon as I saw him my mind kept ticking over.” Jody secured the finance and Landioso was flown over to Auckland for quarantine.
But as so often a talented rider and a successful horse are not always a guarantee for an automatically working partnership. Landioso and Jody had no easy start as the stallion has an extremely strong character and his new rider felt “he had had enough of dressage”.
So there was Jody’s great hope, napping and refusing to go where she wanted him to go, impossible to be hacked out or ridden on the beach, being naughty at the first competitions, often very much behind the aids: "At my first show at Taupo I had very little control and Landioso was scared of the sheep grazing nearby," she said. Landioso was also not used to being "a normal horse out in the field." He was so frightened of his freedom that on a few occasions he jumped the fence and ran back to his stable.
What sounds like a nightmare became a turning point in Jody’s riding and training. She contacted Dr. Andrew McLean from the Australian Equine Behaviour Centre and as Jody admits: “In just a few short lessons Andrew got Landioso and me on the same page. His training philosophies have changed my life and it has opened up more doors than I could ever imagine. I will be forever grateful for those difficult times with Landioso.”
Jody now teaches and lectures herself worldwide this training based on scientific principles of behavioural theory. “The rider’s aids are all trained systematically and one at a time," Hartstone explained. "One should be careful not to apply two cues at once and ensure that the pressure-release aids (reins or legs) are trained effectively before one moves on to subtle aids like the seat. Basically reins are there to slow down, legs to go, reins to turn and leg for yield. Most important is to train the legs of the horse before training its frame. It is very different from what we see in many training yards where horses are sent to. With them rein pressure and reins are no longer effective to slow down the horses’ leg. Paramount is self carriage. The horses are taught from breaking in to hold their own rhythm, direction and outline.”
Even an older horse like Landioso reacted very positively to this new way of riding and finally he and Jody found themselves on the road to success. Both just missed to qualify for the 2004 Olympic Games, coming second in the NZ Championships behind Louisa Hill and Gabana, who did travel to Athens.
In 2006, at the progressed age of 19, the Holsteiner came 5th in the Grand Prix and even 3rd in the freestyle at the renowned Sydney CDI, the latter being Jody’s greatest experience with “BooBoo”, riding at night in front of a packed stadium. There both earned the FEI Certificate of Capability which could have enabled Jody to fulfil her dream of representing her country at a WEG. Unfortunately the pair wasn’t allowed to travel to Aachen and compete there due to NZ’s strict qualification criteria. Instead three of Landioso’s progeny represented their father in three different disciplines, the Württemberger L’Etoile in dressage.
Landioso’s long career continued an amazing three more years until his 22nd year.
This was only possible as Jody found this physically and mentally sustainable training system. Jody recognized the proud Holsteiner could not be changed much and focused on riding him like he wanted to be ridden. She never worked him very hard: “I always just wanted to keep him happy and ticking along.” BooBoo, whom Jody describes as “a very strong stallion character, the kind that would take a lady out to dinner, but never back down in a gunfight,” was moreover a very good traveler. As a regular flyer to Australia “he flew on the airplane like he was born on one, often kept himself entertained with chewing my hair”.
Unfortunately NZ wasn’t able to qualify a team for the 2008 Olympic Games so Landioso never became an Olympian. His swan-song competitions were in March 2009, were he became the national champion and won at his most favourite show ground in Hastings, the “Horse of the Year Show”. For the last time BooBoo impressed the crowds, which have loved him so much and he said farewell to his thousands of fans with another win. Of course his trot had lost buoyancy at age 22, but the flying changes and pirouettes, always his forté, remained outstanding and were awarded with 8s by international judges.
Even in retirement Landioso is an adorable horse with not one gray hair at age nearly 23, still cheeky and playful, with the energy to rear and buck and passage around in the field, where he now spends his time with plenty of mares around to keep him feeling fresh. Every morning he greets Jody at the stable door by arching his neck over her, sometimes giving her a little nip and then moving quickly away to avoid a smack.
Landioso was Jody’s “once in a lifetime opportunity”, but not only for her competition career. Starting with Belmont Golden Boy, who is still around and covering, and importing BooBoo 6 years ago, she realized her ambition to breed with quality European warmbloods to improve the NZ breed for dressage horses. Karioi Stud, Jody’s lovely property not far from the beach near Raglan, offers a wide range of services and a handful of quality sires. Jody runs the stud without a big staff, and she herself trains horses, cures problem horses, teaches, inseminates mares and so on.
Though NZ has quite a huge number of stallions especially Landioso gets a good book of mares. He is mainly used as a dressage sire, but also for breeding show jumpers. Even US Olympic silver medalist Greg Best has bred with him. Whereas in Europe Landioso’s progeny is numerous and successful not only in dressage his eldest progeny in NZ is 5 years, but Jody is sure “in years to come the legacy he will leave here will play a big role in our performance horse market.”
Retiring BooBoo from dressage din’t mean retirement for Jody. Two years ago she used another opportunity to buy a then already 15-years old Grand Prix stallion with best European bloodlines. The Rhinelander Donnerwind by Donnerschlag x Voltaire (KPWN), sill partly owned by Stal Nijenhus in Holland, joined Karioi Stud in 2007. He is a fine type of a horse, very well trained and sire of the well known Grand Prix horses Danny Wilde and Del Vento.
Jody competes the now 18 year old successfully in Grand Prix competitions in New Zealand and hopes he might enable her to what she wishes so dearly: “I would love to ride at the WEG or the Olympics one day”, though she is realistic about it. “It is very difficult to do this based in NZ. However I have no plans to move away from NZ- it’s paradise on earth!” It is also a paradise in winter. When Europe is freezing and riders rely on their indoor school, Jody enjoys her second passion: Hunting on her own coloured Murphy. According to Jody hunting in her home country means “galloping over partly very steep countryside and jumping large wire fences at sometimes breakneck speed.”
It is also a true paradise for Jody’s horses as they lead a life they could hardly dream of on their old continent: with big fields, lots of green grass and mares around. A way of life that may keep Jody’s recent dressage horses, e.g. a Baden Württemberger doing the small tour, fit and happy in their sport as long as it had the kingpin of Karioi: Landioso.
"Landioso will never leave the property. When his time is finally up he can rest amongst the green grasses that keep him so happy," Jody stated. Maybe until then one of his progeny carries Jody to Olympic heights and shows the world the kind of quality is being bred on the other side of the world.
By Silke Rottermann
Photos © Barbara Thomson Photography
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