Mary Hanna’s latest star, Calanta has been going from strength to strength resulting in a personal best at Deauville last month with a 72.2% in the Grand Prix. Rebecca Ashton caught up with Mary to talk about her exciting mare.

“I found her through Matyi Marissinik, a Dutch horse dealer. I’ve been dealing with her for years. She’s very good at what she does and she knew exactly what I wanted. Calanta was not an expensive horse at all. I’m always shopping with a limited budget so if I want a good horse, I have to find something that maybe has a few issues or one that people have overlooked and I have to try and make something out of it. That’s how it works. Otherwise I have to go and buy a foal or a younger one, like Gerry (Gerion, the youngster Brianna Burgess presented at the World Young Horse Championships in Ermelo), we bought him as a three year old.

“I look at the horses purely from the point of view of can they be Grand Prix horses? Often those who don’t show much in the lower classes turn out to be quite different once you get them to Grand Prix. That was the case with Calanta. It was her potential to sit and collect and the bending of the joints. She had a very good hind leg from the start. And the trainability, of course, they’re the things I look for.

“She’s come up quite quickly. I bought her two years ago from Holland when she was eight years old. At that point she was about Elementary with a couple of flying changes, but she was late with the changes on the right. She had a few other issues as well like no extended trot, but she was one of those horses that give you an amazing feeling when you sit on them. The first ride I had on her I felt I could correct a few things that were problems. I could also feel in the trot that she could be easily trained to do good piaffe/ passage although she didn’t have any at the time.

“I kept training her here in Europe with Patrik (Kittel) for a time and then I took her back to Australia. She just kept developing and developing. Everything I asked of her she did really well. The first tests I started her in were Medium/ Advanced. We did have a few issues at the start because she would get overawed at competitions as she hadn’t done any, so we had to work through that a little bit.

“She has just made an incredible improvement in the last six months, her learning curve just accelerated. As soon as I started to focus on the Grand Prix….she just loved to do it. She does have an incredible natural talent for piaffe/ passage, and that’s just getting better and better. The pirouettes had been a little bit of an issue on one side, she’s a bit weaker on one side, so I’ve had to develop those things. She’s now become very strong in herself, and has developed her muscles in a good way, and has become more even on both sides. As she’s become more through, and straight, the work has just fallen into place.

“We came back to Europe in April and she did her first international competition ever at Compiegne in May. She was early in the draw, but did a very, very nice test for any horse, let alone one who was doing their first Grand Prix internationally. They were marking quite tough in that test so she only got 67.96%, but I was so happy, I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.

“Then we went to Roosendaal and she developed even more and scored well over 70%, and that was a much more difficult show in terms of atmosphere; there were flags and all sorts of distractions. She dealt with that environment really, really well. I remember in the prize giving, she was doing piaffe and passage with her knees to her chin and someone said to me, “Has your horse not done many presentations?”. That was her first one!

“I rode in the clinic with Charlotte (Dujardin) when she was at Boneo Park earlier in the year and she helped me a lot with how to deal with distracting situations that you find at big shows. She pointed out to me that I had the horse a little bit behind my leg and that when I got into these situations where the horse is a little bit nervous and frightened, that I had to get the horse more in front of the leg. That’s often not your instinct when things are going a bit pear shaped. However I discovered that’s exactly what I have to do. I have to be very positive and have her really going, not to ride backwards but to be very forward, very positive and not to pull back on the reins. If I do those things then she very quickly comes around.

“Deauville was fantastic. She got the PB there in the Grand Prix. Once again, it was a bit more polished, a bit more precise in the riding of the test. After that, it was probably a little bit of a mistake, but I took her to Crozet. It was a bit close to Deauville without enough recovery time and it was very, very hot. We got the hottest part of the day and it wasn’t her fault, it was probably mine, I was having a bit of brain meltdown and I think my timing wasn’t as good as it could have been so there were a few uncharacteristic mistakes.

“Patrik just loves this horse, he has since the moment he saw her, so it’s a very good relationship with him, me and the horse working well together. You must have a horse that your trainer likes and gets on with as well. It’s a very positive training situation. If I ever need help, he can get on and have a feel of her for me. If I have a moment where I feel a bit lost, he believes in me and the horse together, and that’s very uplifting and positive. You really need that.

“We’ve just stuck to our training system and Patrik’s helped me get more collected. When I‘m riding on my own sometimes I can get her a little bit long and on the front legs. Patrik’s got me to get her more sitting on the hindleg. He’s very strict with the details, making sure I maintain the straightness, thoroughness and collection and to ride the test in a much more precise and polished way. When I ride on my own, I tend to not ride the detail of the test so well, and I lose the straightness. This is the reason you need your coach there all the time or else those little things slip.

“Calanta is just the most loveable horse and beautiful to handle. She’s never in a bad mood, she never says no, she never doesn’t want to do it, but wants to please you every single day. Everybody who handles her just falls in love with her because she’s just the kindest, sweetest, most affectionate horse. There’s not a mean bone in her. That’s all part of the joy of it. We call her Princess in the stable because she’s so careful, she’d never stand on you, she’d never push you, she’s just a beautiful soul.

“I did an embryo transfer with her and I got the most beautiful foal by De Niro. It’s absolutely stunning and looks identical to her in type and colour. It’s a beautiful big foal with lovely, straight legs. It seems to have very nice movement from what we can tell for now… it’s just a yearling. It’s growing up very nicely in the paddocks at home. I’ll be about 110 by the time it’s grown, but I do intend to ride it! My golf’s not good enough for a career change! I definitely want to get a couple more embryos out of Calanta because she’s so special.

“I’m staying in Europe for now. I think it’s too dangerous to travel the horses back and forward. I lost Limbo after Athens with all the travel. I just love these horses so much and I thought I can’t do that to them; in my heart I just couldn’t. The risk was too great, so we thought we’d stay.”