Anna is an international Grand Prix Dressage rider and trainer based on the Herts/Bucks borders.
She has represented Great Britain on numerous occasions and has won
many international Grand Prixs including on the World Cup tour in 2008. Anna has trained and produced all of her top level horses herself.
. In 2007 Anna was the highest placed British team rider - 10th at the European Championships in Turin riding Liebling - a horse she trained from 3 years old to international Grand Prix. She has ridden on many Nations Cup teams including at the CDIO at Aachen, and has twice represented Great Britain at the World Championships for Young Horses.
She is the recipient of many accolades including the British Equestrian Award for Outstanding Achievement in 2007 and the British Dressage Personality of the Year in 2008. She trains a team of top quality horses and enjoys teaching a wide and successful client base. (see clients page for their stories)
Anna's History Anna started out as a helper at the local riding school. She still remains great friends with the proprietors of the London Equestrian Centre and has lots of happy memories of her time there. Dressage was not really on the agenda at that time. She worked for rides and rode a great variety of horses. One of her 'specialities' was riding the horses that were mis- behaving in the riding school, and she became rather adept at staying on!
Anna on 'pony week' aged 9
When she was 20 Anna took her BHSAI and did well enough for her examiners to suggest that she took her Intermediate exam. More training was needed to achieve these goals and she undertook a course with Sue Payne FBHS. This needed financing however, so Anna undertook a variety of jobs to help pay for her lessons.
Sandwich-making was the first job of the day. Thank goodness Anna is a mornings person as the job started at 4am. Sandwich-making was followed by teaching, which was followed by bar work in the evenings. She worked 7 days a week but her riding improved!
Sue suggested that Anna have some lessons at the Talland School of Equitation before her exam. The first time Anna went to Talland she was amazed by the horses and riders. She'd never seen anyone ride at that level before. She redoubled her efforts to afford tuition. At Talland Anna learnt about dressage, rode flying changes for the first time and was eventually allowed to ride Pammy Hutton's retired Grand Prix horse, Blazeaway, in her lessons with Adam Kemp. Adam and Blazeaway together taught Anna how to ride the Grand Prix movements. She passed her exams up to BHSI (SM) level.
Pammy Hutton and Adam Kemp offered Anna free lessons in return for working at their yard. This offer could not be refused especially as Talland was a fee-paying centre, so Anna patched up the roof of an old mobile home at Talland in order to accommodate herself and her dog at the yard.
At this point she had run out of days and nights to work, so the decision was taken to work all night one night a week to bump it up to 8 days. So a session in a nightclub back in London was followed directly by a drive to Gloucestershire to work on the yard at Talland from Monday to Wednesday and back to work on the Wednesday night. (It has to be said at this point that Anna was about as much use on the yard as a gorilla at a tea party, but the very nice folks at Talland tolerated her as they could see there was a monumental effort being made!)
A first competition followed and, aged 23, she made her debut in affiliated dressage. The competition was approached with trepidation however as the reason she had the ride was because the horse had broken both his owners' arms in the previous competition! She survived with both arms intact however and was well and truly hooked.
After that Pammy gave Anna some young horses to ride and compete and it has to be said that without Adam and Pammy's help Anna would never have made the leap from sandwich-maker to dressage rider.
After this Anna returned to run the riding school that she had spent so much time at as a child. Michael and Yvonne Segen supported her in competing one of the riding school horses, which she trained to advanced level.
Other rides followed - including a spell riding for some of the local Irish sports horse dealers. These tasks involved riding just-backed horses at the sales in Ireland from time to time. Steering and brakes were not always at a premium but she learnt a few life-saving skills which were to stand her in good stead later on. Hunting and cross-country were also part of the agenda but Anna was always trying to train the horses for dressage and took them to local shows.
It was whilst she was competing one of these rather unruly youngsters that one of the judges, Judy Firmston Williams, noticed her and asked her to ride one of her young horses. A real dressage horse - Anna was so excited! Anna started riding for Judy and still does eleven years later! (see Competition Horses for details). Anna riding Aramis T for Judy in the international 6 year old class at Hickstead.
During this time Anna's competitive rides started to pick up. One horse was a 16 year old Cleveland Bay called Mr Bojangle who had been rather strong for hs owner. He was such a clever horse and trained from Novice to Prix St Georges in 18 months. He was placed at Premier League and at the National Championships, and, in his latter years, became Anna's Pas de Deux horse, who along with her partner Ian Cast, won at the National Championships and performed many demonstrations throughout the UK. He (along with many others) helped prove that you don't need a warmblood to enjoy high level dressage.
A successful stint on some Anglo Arabs followed and Anna still has a soft spot for Anglos to this day. She formed a great partnership with a Danish Stallion called De Beer and rode him to Intermediare 1 level and was placed at the Nationals. De Beer retired in great style at the National Championships in 2005.
It was around this time that Anna discovered a real love for dressage to music. Horrified by the cost of bespoke music programmes, Anna became very highly motivated to learn how to mix the music herself . Anyone who knows Anna is aware that she is not musical or very computer literate, but she has gone on to create music programmes for herself and others that have so far won 11 National Championships, 9 Regional Championships, 5 International classes and the Equilibra and Koorenbloem £10,000 Challenge twice! Anna herself has won at all levels to music including at the National Championships and on the World Cup tour. Anna makes the Polish press having won the World Cup qualifier in Warsaw. During this time other competitive rides started to pick up. One horse Anna was given to train was a very very naughty Holstein gelding called Liebling. Anna spent 8 years training Liebling from just backed to Grand Prix and eventually went to Germany to train with Ulla Salzgeber where they were based for 2 years as they started their international Grand Prix career. She competed him from his first prelim test to eventually 10th and the top British combination at the European Dressage Championships in 2007. They contested their first international when he was 6 years old at the World Championship for young horses in 2003 and won their first International Grand Prix on in 2007. She rode on the British team with him for 2 years and they were the non travelling reserves for the Beijing Olympics in 2008. They won the World Cup Qualifier in Warsaw in February 2008 and competed at the CDIO Aachen. Liebling then moved to Carl Hester's stables who subsequently sold him to Canada. In early 2009 Anna took Pegasus MK to the Sunshine tour in Verjer de la Frontera Spain. MK picked up many placings, finished the top British horse in the Small Tour Final and also made his international Grand Prix debut. In 2010 Anna rode Pegasus on the British Team in the Nations Cup at the Saumur CDIO and was well placed in the World Cup qualifier in Lipica. ....to be continued
|
