Story by Chris Hector & Photos by Roz Neave
Twenty three year old, Katja Weimann is living breathing proof of the depth of talent that enriches Australian eventing. Success breeds success, and Katja was one of the many young riders inspired by Australian gold medal Olympic success, and one of the riders we’ll be looking for to keep those gold medals rolling in…
Katja was the typical pony club kid “just doing a little bit of everything. I suppose the first thing I did seriously was eventing, and I liked it, so I stuck with it. I’d look at all the Olympic teams and how well we did at the Olympics, it excites you, the idea of doing something like that … maybe.”
And like most Australian young riders, Katja did it without a lot of help, making do with “just Pony Club average instructors. I had a few lessons from Michelle Strapp early on, she’s really good. I started doing EFA eventing in 2000 and applied for the Horseland Young Rider of the Year, and through that got into the State Squad and started getting some good instruction, which was great.”
Like many of our senior riders, Katja is finding showjumping the area that needs most work – “the dressage is not going too badly. Generally my horses can be up there in the dressage. Cross country is quite good, I suppose the showjumping would be the weakest phase at the moment, and I’m working on that.”
”As well as the State Squad, I’ve been having some lessons with Ron Patterson, he comes down here from time to time, he’s been really good. He’s helped my horses go a lot kinder. Sometimes I try to do too much and he’s just taking it easy, and it seems their paces are coming out better in the dressage.”
“Help from Jamie Coman in the showjumping has been great. Just getting the horse to jump better -like my young horse, Gus (BP Gallantry), I’ve just trained him myself and never had much help getting him jumping well- he jumps nicely but he just needed to learn the technique and Jamie has been great helping with that.”
“I’ve taken a few different horses to Jamie and he just seems to pick up the few things for each of those horses, and also, it’s not just the horse jumping – when you jump, he helps you too, with your riding and your position, which not a lot of people do.”
Katja burst on to the scene with a grey Warmblood mare, Monogram Miss (Monoduke out of a Cenwein mare) – and soon found herself competing against the big kids.
You were lucky to find Monogram Miss early in your career – she gave you the opportunity to get into some real competition?
“We got her in 1998, she started out as a Grade 4 Pony Clubber- we bought her for my sister, she didn’t like her, so I got her. She’s just been great. Cross-country, she’s pretty much a machine – she’ll take on pretty well anything, and that has been good to take me right up the grades. She’s not the fastest galloper but she’ll still try her heart out for you.”
“Not a great dressage test, but in the end we got it a bit better. She is off having a foal now to the stallion I ride, Triathlete – it should be a nice baby.”
Before retiring to the brood mare’s paddock, Monogram Miss carried Katja to a 3rd in the CIC*** at Lakes and Craters, and a 9th at Melbourne CCI***, amongst a string of other good placings in top company. I guess its apt that Katja with her German name (thanks to her enormously supportive Dad, Henning) should make her mark riding German bred horses – the stallion, Triathlete is out of a Thoroughbred mare but by the imported Hanoverian, Winterkönig. Katja has been riding him for five years now, but his career has been plagued with more than its share of hiccups…
“He’s just been plagued with injuries, sickness, whatever. Alison Crombie, who owns him, had done Adult Riding Club, so he’d had a basic grounding. I rode him and took him to some Prelim events, and they went not too badly. Then something happened to him! It was always like that. You’d ride him half a year, then something would happen, and he’d have to have half a year off.”
“After Camperdown 2005, he had to have an operation! He had an enterolith – it looked like a shot putt, calcified mineral in his intestines. For the proceeding 18 months, he’d had colicky like symptoms. After he came back from Sydney he got a leg injury, got over that, then started getting colic symptoms. So he had more time off. It wasn’t really bad, he might get it every couple of months. So I started riding him again in the last half of 2005. He’d get it every now and then, if he was worked hard – galloped or something – but he seemed to be coping.”
“Then we finished Camperdown and I just kept riding him. In January I had a lesson, and the day after that he got really colicky and then just started having colic every week, two times a week, three times a week, so I didn’t ride him any more. Then his owner came home in March and found him all bloated up in the paddock and really in pain. They took him to the hospital and they removed this thing that had gone right to the end of his intestines where it was blocking everything!”
Now you’ve gone from the Warmbloods to the Thoroughbred…
“BP Gallantry is by the jumping bred Thoroughbred, Jubilee Bay out of a Star Kingdom line mare by Gypsy Kingdom.”
“We bought him when he was five months old, so we’ve had him since he was little. He’s turning out to be a nice horse – he’s got quite a nice jump on him, nice paces for the dressage, and a nice temperament. We’ll just keep on putting him through the grades, putting him up, and see how he goes.”
Is it different working with a Thoroughbred?
“He’s a lot more sensitive than the Warmbloodds. He can easily get a bit frazzled. He’s a much much better galloper – the Warmbloods are difficult to gallop. That’s what I find easier with him -he didn’t race or anything, but doing the gallop work with him, he seems to work it out, whereas even now, my Warmblood stallion, you’ve got to really get after him to get him to gallop. Gallantry’s headed for the two star at Adelaide, probably the CIC class, then hopefully on to Camperdown, the CCI**.”
Is it hard, working by yourself?
”It is a bit difficult, you are doing it all by yourself and there is only so much you can pick up on, especially with the jumping I think its good to have the eyes on the ground, it’s good for the dressage as well. It would be good to have a lesson a week, that would keep you going but I can’t afford that at the moment. The state squads help but they are only every couple of months.”
What’s your ambition?
“Hopefully – fingers crossed – when Rufe (Triathlete) comes back in, he should be right. They said six months off after his surgery- then it’s a matter of working him up slowly and getting him out again. Hopefully I can have him three star by Melbourne, and with Gus, he’s been really good at one star, and I’m looking forward to taking him two star.”
That’s your full-time job, riding?
“It is at the moment. I do a bit of teaching and ride a few horses. I finished uni last year. I’d done that for five years, and the last couple were part time. It was good, you had uni to go to and something else in between.”
So you are another event rider squandering a university education?
“Yep, my degree was Animal Science so I am still hoping to one day do something with it.”
FRAMING A WORKING SESSION
“Gus’s got a competition coming up, so I have just been working on the dressage and what happens in the test. I jumped him last week for the first time in a couple of weeks, and he was actually quite silly. Showjumping wise, I’ve just been putting little grids up to stop him running – he’s been rushing his fences- so a pole in front and a pole behind, getting him to look more at that fence, rather that just take it on. ”
“It’s good where we live – out around the roads, there’s good hills. I just keep off the asphalt as much as I can. There’s a nice big steep hill down the back. At the bottom it’s a bit flat so you can do your gallop work down there, then you don’t have to gallop as fast if you use the steep hill. It’s just using what I’ve got…”