Amandori stars in his international Grand Prix debut – photo Łukasz Kowalski

Simone Pearce seems to be on an unstoppable rise to the top in the world of international dressage. Over the past five years she has made a name for herself as a rider of young horses, although she always has disputed this description, saying she was a rider of horses, and this February she has proved it with a with a stunning international Grand Prix debut on Amandori, a nine-year-old stallion son of Ampère in his International Grand Prix debut, scoring 71.022% to place 4th in a field of 25 starters at Le Mans, France…

Dimaggio Black – performance test champion

And this was hard on the heels of Simone’s triumph with the five-year-old stallion, Dimaggio Black (Dimaggio / Prince Heinrich), winning the stallion performance test at Münster-Hahndorf! So she hasn’t lost her touch with the babies…

I told Simone that I had lost track of all the horses she is riding right now, and she sent me a list that is super impressive:

“I have Destano of course – making 76 in GP and close to 78 in the Special.. then I have Amandori who just made his international Grand Prix debut last week for over 71% and he’s been making over 74% in National GP, so I’m excited to see how he will develop in the next shows.”

Millennium – ready for the big tour

“Then I have a 13yo stallion Double Joy who I’m hoping to have my first start with this weekend actually: he’s doing Grand Prix. Millennium has been scoring over 74 in the small tour and now he will start in the big tour in the next weeks- first Inter 2 and later GP. Then I have an 8yo gelding by Millennium named Moncler- I will also start him for the first time this weekend at small tour level but he will pretty soon be ready for Inter 2 as well.

“And I have the seven-year-old Quando Unico, who is now also getting ready for the small tour- he’s really amazing!! But this year I will focus on the World Young Horse Championships.”

Catching up with Simone is a bit like being caught in a hurricane, she bubbles, her eyes flash, the laugh is never very far away, but behind the glitz, there is a very thoughtful horse person. Back in 2017, she visited Australia, and conducted a masterclass. From the sidelines it looked as if Simone was a veteran at the genre – then later she confessed it was her first ever masterclass!

But it was packed full of wisdom:

“Wait, tap, forward, repetition is the most important thing with young horses. When they give a good reaction, reward by going forward. I’d still like him rounder for a six-year-old. Go in medium on the long side and every time he comes down, slow, up and reward with forward.”

“Now let him walk, but with a young horse never throw the reins away in walk, the walk is just as important as any other pace, let him get deeper and more over the back, but keep a contact. With Casablanca, who I rode at the World Championships, when we started she was getting 8 or 8.2 for walk, but by the time we got to the Championships, she scored 9. You have to really concentrate on the walk.”

That’s a walk for a ten! Simone and Feodoro at the World Young Horse Championships 

“Think about the contact, most riders think either a strong contact, or give the rein away. You want no strength in your hands, but more contact on your hands. More legs, but be patient, when he holds the contact, the horse comes up – you have to give the horse something to go into.”

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“My horses are soft, but they are soft because I ride them from the back to the front.”

Simone and Casablanca at the Young Horse Champs…

Simone is another who uses the shoulder in at every point in her training:

“Use shoulder in for every correction, for the transitions – say extended trot to walk, just one step of shoulder in.”

“It’s a bit like when you teach a dog something, and you use a clicker, and the clicker gets the dog to think, okay, now I have to do what my trainer wants me to do. It’s exactly the same thing with the horse, the shoulder in re-connects the horse to the rider – so I use it when the horse is straight and running a little bit, instead of getting hectic and pulling backwards – you have no opportunity to do that in the show – so I just use one step of very gentle shoulder in to re-connect the horse to me.

Demonstrating on a higher level horse at the Master Class in Australia

Shoulder in and corners, that’s all I do. On my Grand Prix horse, I never train Grand Prix movements, I train shoulder in, corners. With my young horses, shoulder in, corners – that’s the secret!”

Simone may have been a masterclass novice, but she is a master at the art of an interesting vibrant interview:

How is it that you sit on a horse, and your legs are ten times quieter than we see with most of the Australian based riders, and yet your horse is 100% more forward?

“I have to say something funny, because when I first moved to Europe, the first thing my first boss said was look at her legs! She cannot possibly be a professional with legs like that!

That’s the first thing I heard when I’d just got off the plane from Australia, so it was a real struggle for me in the first twelve months – a real struggle to get my legs still. The first thing was that I developed my legs to be still, and that’s a basic thing – but my horses are off the leg because I don’t touch them as much as other riders. Other riders are kick, kick, kick, kick, me, I have still legs, quiet legs, I support the horse. If I need them I use them, but otherwise… that’s the thing with everything, patience, quiet, not so much movement, simplify everything, take it back to basics.”

Feodoro – ride them from the back to the front

You say you had to re-make the way you used your legs, but how do you do that?

“It was a lot of personal perseverance. The place that I was at, my boss was not going to tell me every two minutes to keep my legs still and my toes in. She told me about three times and then she said, I’m not telling you any more, it’s your turn to fix it yourself. And that’s what I did.”

When you were talking about contact, you were saying, not strong but not give away, which are the only two options our riders seems to consider…. What is the middle option you are looking for?

“For me, the way to get the perfect contact is by having shorter reins. I think more about my elbows than my hands. Your elbows should be giving and your hands keep steady on the contact. That’s really important, so many riders pull back with their hands and let the elbow also pull backwards, but for me, you have to have a soft elbow and a steady hand, not a strong hand, a steady hand.”

Do you think it is your timing, you are so quick to reward…

“That’s something a lot of riders have trouble with, they don’t know when to hold and when to give, and to be honest, that comes with a lot of experience and feeling. You can’t say to someone – this is the time, there is no time, you have to feel it. It’s hard but it helps if you trust yourself more – I think a lot of riders don’t trust themselves enough. I never think what if? I think, it’s good, good girl, or it’s not good, no stress, just this, this, this. I think I’m quite lucky that I naturally have quite a lot of feeling. It’s the hard truth of riding, there are some people who are naturals. I’ve been messy before, but I’ve always had that feeling to sort of know when to stop and when to go, but you can definitely develop it by having a good trainer – that’s essential.”

Simone made the most of every opportunity from the time she got off that plane in Europe, and now she finds herself chief rider for one of the world’s finest stallion stations, Gestüt Sprehe, with her super team of horses…