6 minute read
ANTHONY PELLING
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.
One 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.
Horses have been Anthony’s passion since childhood. He grew up in 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 Lisbon working with her horses. “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!”
Main and inset: Anthony Pelling and Saqueadora Candau.
In the years that followed, Anthony trained and competed the stud horses nationally and internationally in all levels of dressage, from young horse classes through to Grand Prix. He completed several of the Master clinics of the Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art and trained with numerous top instructors, beginning with Rafael Soto, multi Olympic medallist, official trainer to the Spanish Olympic team and Master Rider at the Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art.
His main instructor and mentor for over a decade was Bert Rutten, two-time Olympic rider for the Netherlands and former Chef d’Equipe to the Dutch National Dressage Team. Together they had numerous successes, including winning various titles at the world finals of the pure Spanish horse association (Asociación Nacional de Criadores de Caballos de Pura Raza Española, generally shortened to ‘ANCCE’).
Other trainers he has worked with over the years include Joaquin Legares, a well-known rider and classical dressage trainer in Spain; Jose Antonio Garcia Mena, who rode for Spain in two World Equestrian Games and two European Dressage Championships, and Dani Martin Dockx, also a Spanish team Olympic rider. But the sad truth about riding for a professional breeding stable is that as soon as a horse wins national and international accolades, it’s time for it to be sold. This happened to Anthony and his pupil horses again and again - it can be tough for the person who has put in the blood, sweat and tears into the training. Towards the end of his time in Spain the effort Anthony had put in with each of these horses, only to have to hand them over to someone else, left him feeling burnt out.
His first Grand Prix mount, for example, Babieca Candau, trained by Anthony and successful in the Salon Internacional del Caballo de Pura Raza Española (SICAB)
A: Anthony Pelling with Africano Candau in front of the indoor arena. B: Babieca Candau warming up for the Grand Prix test on the Sunshine tour. C: Urdidor Candau Competing PSG at Jerez CDI. D: Anthony competing on Napoleon Candau in the CDI 3 Star Stallion Class at The Young Horse World Championships in at Ermelo, Holland, 2018. B
D C
World Championships, was sold to a wealthy 71-year old Canadian who wanted to learn to ride because his wife was learning to dance.
For a few years while he was living in Moron de la Frontera, a Spanish town in Seville province, Andalusia, Anthony owned his own horses and was in a relationship. But after the relationship broke down, and the breeding world seemed to Anthony increasingly mercenary, he sold everything, except his boots. It was time to come home.
“My boss (the breeder) used to say that everything is for sale, except the rider,” he said. “When I was leaving I was knocked over by the amount of respect I had. Riders all over Spain patted me on the back and said: ‘Don’t leave’. It was a big difference to years before when I’d arrived.”
Although the family property was sold, Anthony has now returned to Theodore, where he grew up, where he is currently living on his uncle’s property.
“If I could find a nice colt…” he begins, then stops, insisting that even if he found a horse he wanted it would be: “only as a hobby and for personal pleasure”.
He’s made the decision to enrol at TAFE in Biloela and is now learning a trade and is contemplating going on to university to study engineering.
But when he talks about the horses he’s ridden, and even the horses that he might ride, it’s impossible not to hear the passion in his voice. He’s too skilled a horseman, and too knowledgeable about the Andalusian breeding world, to let it all go. “Everyone tries to get me back riding,” he says, “but at the moment I’m happy giving the occasional clinic.”
What’s the betting it won’t be long before Anthony Pelling is once more wowing audiences with his extraordinary horsemanship skills – in one way or the other?
