FEATURE
Anthony Pelling – he still calls Australia home After 15 years in Europe international Grand Prix Rider Anthony Pelling is back in his home town of Theodore, and pondering his next move, writes JANE CAMENS.
O
ne of Anthony Pelling’s highlights last year was representing Australia at the Young Horse World Championships, riding Napoleon Candau, a talented Andalusian. The pair placed fifth in the final of the Concours de Dressage International (CDI) stallion class, and for Anthony, who had trained the young stallion from the beginning, it was a fitting end to his European career – a fullstop before a new beginning back in Australia.
since childhood. He grew up in
Horses have been Anthony’s passion
Lisbon working with her horses.
Theodore, about 500kms north-west of Brisbane on a property where his father had a Brahman cattle stud, and his mother bred and rode Andalusians. Anthony first started riding when he was five-years-old, and as he grew older, both he and his mother used to travel south to attend classical dressage clinics. He was only 13 when he was given an invitation from renowned Portuguese instructor Nadine Francois to spend three months at her property outside
“She had a lot of horses and not much space,” he recalls. “I lived on the edge of the stables, sleeping on a cement floor with a rug. It was winter, and I was all by myself, but I was a tough kid and I coped.” Even so his daily routine was gruelling for a young teenager. “Every morning I’d prepare all the horses and leave the stallions for others to ride,” he recalls. “Later I’d do gymnastics without irons, which taught me how to sit correctly. In the afternoon I was allowed to ride the school masters who were aged 16-18 years old. I was isolated but it taught me to ride, that’s for sure!” He returned home to go back to school and to his own horse, a school master called Remington, bought for him when he was six. It was a partnership that lasted until Anthony was 14, when he went off to boarding school and adopted rugby as his key sport. Life was following a fairly straight forward trajectory when he went off to the University of Queensland to study animal science, but as fate would have it, Anthony met a Spanish breeder who invited him to work for him riding his horses in Spain for three months. Initially in Spain on a student visa with the aim of not only working for the breeder but also learning enough Spanish to do the theory component for entry to the Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art at Jerez de la Frontera, Anthony discovered that he really enjoyed both the riding and life in Europe. “I had a good time,” he says. “I started to work and really wanted to do something.” When Anthony was 22 the breeder offered him the job of head rider. “He had 14 or 15 stallions, not well trained, and I was keen to take over their training - I started learning, and teaching everything I could about dressage. Initially I wasn’t very welcome because I was taking a Spaniard’s job, but they gradually warmed to me!”
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HORSEVIBES MAGAZINE - JUNE 2019
