Horse Dressage Training

Riders from the British para-equestrian dressage team are to train just outside Norwich for three days before going for gold at the World Equestrian games this autumn.

The visit to Easton College at the start of September will include a special evening event where hundreds of spectators have snapped up free seats to watch the team perform its dressage-to-music routine at the college’s £5m indoor arena which opened last year.

Hilary Francois, the college’s equestrian centre and events manager, said: “It’s a real honour for Easton College that the team are to train here and we’re excited that so many people will have a unique opportunity to see them in action.

“It is also a great boost to our ambitions to open up the new centre to everyone and my personal goal to promote para-riding across the region.

“Norfolk’s top international para-equestrian rider Susi Rogers-Hartley works closely with us and is a great supporter of the centre, and we want to help even more of these courageous people pursue riding and particularly dressage opportunities. All they have to do is get in touch.”

Ms Rogers-Hartley prefers to focus on showjumping, but also trains in dressage at Easton.

Mrs Francois said the British squad had chosen Easton because of the quality of the new equestrian centre and the college’s close links with David Hunter, the Norfolk-based performance manager for GB para-equestrian dressage who is also clerk to the course at Fakenham Racecourse, and coach Michel Assouline.

Members of the British team will be training at Easton College on the first few days of September and the public event will be on Friday, September 3, from 7pm. With the support of the British Equestrian Federation, around 400 free seats were made available – and the event is already a sell-out.

Mrs Francois said: “Everyone benefits as the aim is to create a lively competition atmosphere for the riders as a flavour of the real thing.”

The British para-equestrian dressage squad is widely regarded as the best in the world after bringing home 10 medals from the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games and seven golds from the European Championships in Kristiansand, Norway last year.

Now the squad is preparing to join Team GBR competing at the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games in Kentucky this autumn. The para-dressage phase will run from October 5-9.

Easton College has bid for a place to host an Olympic equestrian team for the London 2012 games, as its indoor arena was only recently completed and by then the deadline for bids had passed.

Major achievements: Carl won the 1985 National Young Rider Championship just 18 months after taking up dressage, was a Talent Spotting finalist in 1986 and a member of the British Young Rider team in 1988.

In his competition career as a senior, Carl has amassed a record 44 national dressage titles and has been British Dressage (BD) National Champion five times. He has competed in three Olympics, one World Equestrian Games, four European Championships and has reached one World Cup Dressage Final.

Carl and Escapado were the highest-placed British combination at the 2004 Athens Olympics as well as the 2005 European Championships, where they finished sixth with a personal record-score. He was selected for the 2007 European Championships with Lecantos, but had to withdraw due to his ride injuring himself a couple of weeks before the competition.

In 2008, Carl’s bad luck continued. He had two horses in contention for the Olympics, Dolendo and Lecantos, but both ended up out of the running due to injuries.

2009 continues with great success in the UK for Carl, his new recent ride of Uthopia has achieved results of 76.11% at Premier League PSG and CDI Inter 1 winning with 76.66%.

TMovistar also continues to impress in 2009 with a recent win at the Saumur CDI Inter 1 with 77.55%.

In 1996, Carl won the Dressage Trainer of the Year and, in 1997, he was awarded the Spillers Equestrian Personality of the Year. He is a sought-after trainer; his former pupil Vaughn Jefferis became the 1994 individual three-day event world champion and Carl was the dressage trainer for the New Zealand three-day event team at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

Qualities looked for in a dressage horse: “I look for willingness to work as well as an ability to lengthen and shorten with a desire to go forwards rather a lot.”

Favourite dressage venues: “Hickstead, as we always have stonking good weather, the arena surfaces are great and there is a party atmosphere. Abroad, I love the Sunshine Tour, which takes place on three consecutive weekends in Spain in March, from the point of view that it is the most relaxed atmosphere to start a horse’s international competition career.”

What other career would you have chosen: “Something in the hotel trade as I come from an island geared to tourism and worked in bars and hotels in my early years.”

Favourite drink:

Anky van Grunsven was born in Erp, the Netherlands, on January 2, 1968.  When she was six years old she got her first pony, a Shetland pony named “Heleentje”.  At first she would only clean and brush Heleentje. After taking the first riding lessons from her father, she joined the pony club in Erp. At age seven she started showing, something she was not too good at in the beginning.  Only after graduating from high school she decided to start riding professionally.

Prisco was the first horse that was really her own.  Anky rode her very first dressage test on Prisco at “L” level in 1980.  She advanced to “Z” level in 1982.  There were ups and downs.  Her persistence was rewarded in 1990 when she won the Dutch championships for the first time.  With her mount Bonfire she became Dutch dressage champion a second time in 1991. They won the national dressage title a total of nine times.

Anky became the World Champion Musical Freestyle in The Hague in 1994.  She won the World Cup Final seven times. The first time in Hollywood in 1995 where “Bonfire’s Symphony”, her freestyle music, played an important role.  She won in Gothenburg (1996), in ’s-Hertogenbosch (1997), in Dortmund (1999) and again in ’s-Hertogenbosch (2000).  During all these finals she rode Bonfire.  In 2004, 2005 and 2006, Anky and Salinero won the World Cup Final in Düsseldorf, Las Vegas and Amsterdam respectively.

The highlights of Anky’s career until now are of course her two gold medals at the Olympic Games in Sydney and in Athens.  The first one on Bonfire (2000), who finished his career winning in Sydney.  She won the second gold medal aboard Salinero (2004), who at the time just started his sports career.

In 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 2000 and 2004 Anky was named “Rider of the Year” in the Netherlands and she was honored as “Sports Woman of the Year” in 1994.  In 2001 she was named “Rider of the Century”.  Anky also received two royal decorations “Ridder in de Orde van Oranje Nassau” and “Ridder in de Orde van de Nederlandse Leeuw”.

Riding and everything that comes with it have become a full-time occupation for Anky.  In the afternoons, after the daily training of her horses, she will teach her students.  The levels vary from the national Z level through Grand Prix.  In addition, she frequently gives clinics in the Netherlands and abroad.  Much attention also goes to her clothing line, ANKY ® Technical Casuals.  She primarily gets involved with the designs and PR.

After the successful Olympic Games in Athens, Anky and her trainer and partner Sjef had a son, Yannick Janssen, who was born on November 23, 2004.  Yannick Janssen always joins Anky and Sjef when they travel to major shows. Anky and Sjef were married in Las Vegas in April 2005 in the presence of Yannick Janssen. On March 6, 2007 daughter Ava Eden was born. Only a few weeks later she wins the National title with Keltec salinero and that year she wins the European Championships in Turin. The Dutch team wins gold. In 2008 Anky wins the two most important competitions of this year: the Worldcupfinal and the Olympic Games! Anky is the first rider even who wins individual gold three times in row with two different horses (Bonfire 2000 and Salinero 2004 & 2008)

Taken from Anky official website.

Jessica Costello and Litmanen danced their way to victory in the Grand Prix Freestyle at the inaugural CDI3* Toronto CNE Dressage Classic.

Could the German International Dressage Rider Anja Ploenzke (website: http://www.anja-ploenzke.de) become the next Isabell Werth? If you ask her many fans all over the globe, the answer is a definite yes, because she is one of the sport’s top audience favorites. Ploenzke is not only highly talented and successful but in a sport characterized by elitism, she is also a very approachable star.

“I love speaking with my fans,” the Dressage Queen said at the Munich International Horse Show in May. “I am generally a gregarious type and really enjoy meeting new people. Sometimes, when I notice that someone comes to stand next to me and really wants to talk to me but cannot quite work up the courage, I just make the first move and start talking to them.”

Ploenzke, whose family runs the renowned German breeding station Gut Tannenhof, also has no qualms about making herself available for interviews or press conferences. “ That is all part of the job, I think,” she says. “I am not much one for an elitist attitude – in the end, we are all involved with horses and that unites us, whether we are at a big show to compete, to report about it, or to watch.”

Like many others of today’s top riders, Ploenzke’s early beginnings in riding can be traced back to the parental farm. “We had a farm when I grew up and there were many animals, among them a few ponies. Like the other kids, I started riding them a bit but for me the riding soon turned into a real passion and I realized there was much more I wanted to do in the sport. I was 12 when I got my first horse from my parents and from then on, I started seriously training for higher levels.”

When it came to training, Anja was very lucky: the parental groom also happened to be a very decent rider and was able to get her to advanced medium level in dressage.
From 1985 to 1993, she then went on to train with Conrad Schumacher of the Neuhof Estate in Dreieck/Germany, and it was not long before she was able to successfully compete in her first advanced level show. The rest is history, as they say, for Anja went on to win and compete at many of the big national and international shows, including winning the Bronze medal at last year’s German Championships. She also holds the German Riding Gold Medal in dressage. Nowadays, she is one of the absolute crowd favorites on the dressage circuit, highly placing or winning frequently with her current top mounts, the stallions Tannehof’s Solero (by Hyllos x Siri Arabella) and Tannenhof’s Conteur (by Contender x Ofarim H). At the recent International CDI/CSI at Munich-Riem/Germany, she had audiences rocking in their chairs when she rode a very spirited Grand Prix Freestyle to the music of American rapper Eminem.

“Music is my other big passion,” says Anja, “and I love to dance. So I wanted to transfer this passion for dancing to my horses and have them dance with me. Classical music is a bit boring for this, and this is how I came up with the idea of Eminem. At first, everyone thought I was nuts, using rap music. But now they all love it. For my next freestyle, I am going one step further: I will use the music of the Austrian singer Falco, but this time I will use the entire words, meaning that the singing will be included. I don’t know whether this has been done before in dressage freestyle or how people will react, but one can only wait and see. My horses love it, for sure.”

When she is not busy rising at the big shows in Europe, Anja loves travelling to Mallorca. Her sister, Britta, owns a small hotel there, the C’as x Orc. If there is no time for travelling on account of her full schedule, Anja loves going to restaurants for relaxation. “I am especially fond of Sushi, or of good Italian food. Couple that with a fine glass of dry red wine, and you’re in heaven!”

And her horses? Are they gourmets as well? “Not really,” she laughs, “the prefer more simple, earthly fare, such as carrots!”

Taken From http://www.equine-world.co.uk/