He’s a Grand Prix dressage horse now with his talented young rider, Alexis Hellyer, but he was just a baby when she got him after he’d been started by Boyd and Silva Martin…
Story by Chris Hector, photos by Roz Neave and Peter Stoop
With Boyd and Silva Martin
Our little Dressage prospect, Waca has been quietly progressing in his work with Silva Stigler, now it’s time for another step up – and for our training session photo shoot, we decided to do it in style, and at the same time, see how the ‘baby’ would handle the pressure of a new arena.
Just down the road from Boyd and Silva’s Lochinvar base, is Carroll’s Ranch, a state of the art equestrian facility with both indoor and outdoor arenas. In deference to Roz and her camera, Silva rode the horse in the outdoor, with its spectacular Hunter Valley backdrop… not that any of it affected the little guy. Waca worked like a dream. He has such a big trot – with so much of that fashionable modern knee action – that you could see him get a little unbalanced at times with a tendency to lose rhythm, but the canter is simply AMAZING, so big and under himself – like the famous world champion, Farbenfroh, and the walk is way above average…
And Silva, well she just sits there, so quiet, so correct, and getting the result she is looking for, not that she is looking for anything much at this stage.
With a baby horse like Waca, how much is there you can do?
“Not so much. The only important thing is going forward and straight, try to get them round without putting any pressure on them. Just try to keep it fun and get them confident.”
They accept the bridle right from the start?
“Not right at the start. When you break them in, it doesn’t matter where their head goes, they just need to learn to go forward. You don’t have to do much, you just have to have an even contact, and all of a sudden they are on the bit. There is not much you do, it works out by itself.”
It might be easy for you to say that coming from Germany where every horse seems to go on the bit. When you see a four year old class in Germany, they all go round in a nice outline, but I regularly see so-called FEI horses competing in Australia, and one minute they are above the bit, and the next second behind it, and the rider’s hands are dancing round like a puppeteer with a marionette – why does it look so simple in Germany?
There might be some riders who make a big deal out of riding young horses, I think the main thing is to leave young horses alone, ride them forward and straight. I don’t think you need to try and pull their head in or anything. If you just leave them alone it will come. Make sure you have even contact on both reins, and they will drop down and reach.”
How deep do you like your young horses to work?
“I like them to reach, I like them to drop their neck down to where the wither is, just reach down so the back comes up, and the back swings. I like them as deep as you can without losing the contact.”
Not Anky deep?
“This is not what I learnt. Anky is doing a great job, she really wants them round, round, round but this is just different from what I learned.”
You are aiming Waca for Dressage with the Stars at the end of the year, what will be your program for him?
“I want to just keep going. Doing what I am doing now. Keep him confident and forward. I want to try and improve his trot a little, so he has a bit more schwung – I don’t know the word in English. I don’t think we’ll have any problems with that. I think he is already on the right way.”
The walk and the canter look fairly flash?
“Amazing, you don’t have to do anything with them. The only thing is that the trot is a little unbalanced at the moment because he has only been in work for a couple of weeks. I think he will be fine.”
Have you had any problems – issues like straightness?
“Not at all, Boyd broke him in, and took him in and out of the arena. He was very confident and not scared at all. By the time I got on him, he was just so confident, I just had an even contact and he was there. He is a horse with a wonderful nature.”
“He is happy to do whatever you want him to do.”
SILVA – A LIFE
“I started riding when I was little, about seven years old – I just rode in the little pony club stable. I finished school. My dad is a lawyer, so he wanted me to go to Uni, but I didn’t want to do that so we had a little argument, but it was alright, I started my Bereiter in Paul Veck’s stables.”
“This is a government owned stable and stallion station in the Rhineland breeding area. I worked there for three years – Paul Veck actually trained Jean Bemelmanns, he was a great trainer. He is nearly 70 years old, so he is from the old school. It was a hard three years. We worked seven days and started early in the morning and finished late at night, but it was worth it. I learnt heaps and heaps.”
“I saw all the stallions from Warendorf that came there for the breeding season – like Florestan – and saw them work. I competed a lot at that time, many young horses and up to Prix St Georges. Then I did my Bereiter’s license in Warendorf, at the Westphalien State Stud. I was graded one of the best riders in my class and won a scholarship to train with Herbertus Schmidt for three months. That was great, and even better, he kept me on for another year.”
“That was the best time, working with him because he is such a nice guy. There are so many horses there, and it is really exciting. I got lessons on every horse every day.”
He has a very distinctive way of riding, a very light contact – it is beautiful to watch?
“It is just amazing to watch him work, he is very very focussed, and he really loves his horses. The funny thing is that he is just a farmer, he’s not up himself – he does his hay and straw himself, and he does all the stable work – in between he rides a couple of FEI horses.”
“Because he has bereiters that have been there for ten, twelve years, he rang Rudolf Zeilinger, and I got a job with him. I stayed there for three years, which is great as well, different to what Hubertus does, not much, but a bit. I got lessons on every horse, rode eight or nine horses a day. In his stable he has about 30 horses, and at least 20 are Grand Prix! You go through the movements every day.”
Is that important, to get the Grand Prix movements so they are like riding walk, trot, canter?
“It is hard if you just have one horse, you can’t ride every movement with that horse every day, but if you have the chance like I had, of riding that many Grand Prix horses, it is just amazing how quickly you get used to riding one times, or piaffe or passage. It’s the best way to learn it, to do it.”
“I got to compete which is unusual in stables like that, so I was very lucky.”
