It's not only the famous professionals who keep jetting around the globe to compete with their horses at the World Cup Finals in Las Vegas, or Olympic Games at the end of the world: If you become a member of a national Junior or Young Riders team, you're in for a lot of mileage as well. With the European Youngster Classics in Bonn and the European Championships in Nussloch, Germany offered two popular traveling destinations for the best of the Youngsters this year, and one of those young talents was Anne Katrine Elkjaer-Holm from Denmark. On her ten-hour lorry drive from Herning on Jutland, she was accompanied by her parents – and her eight-year-old gelding Durban Marielyst.
“I started riding when I was about ten or eleven years old, so I am not one of those kids who started riding before they could walk. I started riding because my mother had a horse,” smiles the 17-year-old. When she later got a pony of her own, it only took her six months to qualify for the Danish Championships and was quickly nominated for the Danish pony team. After the switch to horses, Anne Katrine continued to compete successfully and made the team for the European Championships immediately during her first Junior season.
“My horse then was Rohmario. He was 11 years old and really a "showhorse". He taught me all the things I needed to know to ride junior. He always knew what to do and helped me many times. But just few weeks before the championships I rode at the Danish championship for teams and we won, but the next day he was lame. So we could not go to the European championship. He has been lame ever since, but he is still in our stable and enjoys everyday at the field.”
“Of course we were very sad and decided to buy a new horse. We bought Durban Marielyst, who is an 8 year old wallach by Blue Hors Don Schufro. We bought him in August 2006. This time I felt ready for a younger and bit more challenging horse. He had not competed so much, but was very well educated by his owner and our trainer for the Danish junior and youngrider team Jon D. Pedersen.”
In the spring of 2007 the pair began competing at international competitions. They were 4th placed in Elmshorn, 5th placed in Stadl Paura, 9th placed in Wouwse Plantage and 7th in Bonn. Aboard Durban, Anne Katrine won the Danish championship for teams the second year in a row and was selected for the European championship 2007 in Nussloch.
“Durban is a really great horse and even though he has not tried that much, he is always easy at competitions. With a young horse it is always more difficult than an older one, because he is different every time I go in the competition arena, because he of course responds to the new things around him. He doesn't just go like a "show machine", but I think that is very exiting and a challenge.”
In addition to that, Durban is a strikingly beautiful horse, who didn't only show good results in Bonn, but was noticed because the whole family cared for him lovingly all the time, talking him for walks, letting him graze or coddling him with a shower.
“And if it starts to rain and thunder like it did in Bonn, we have to be with him and calm him down. But he is getting more experienced every time, and I think it is exciting to follow the development there are in our "teamwork", our riding and the trust that has to be between horse and rider.”
Being the best foreign rider and making it into the freestyle final in Bonn was especially satisfying for the sympathetic youngster. “I especially LOVED to beat some of those tough German riders, it felt very nice. Standing as the only foreign rider at the prize giving ceremony with Germans on my left side, is always fun.”
Even though the Danish team didn't win the bronze medal they had been hoping for in Nussloch – surprisingly, it was the Italians who won the very close race for that medal – Anne Katrine isn't letting anything spoil the fun of riding for her.
“As a Young Rider, I hope to come to the European Championships as well. I can't see further into the future, because I also believe education is very important, but I would love to ride for the rest of my life.”
Text and Photos by Barbara Schnell
Related Link
Scores of the 2007 European Junior/Young Riders Championships