Penny Castle Reigns Supreme at 2015 New Zealand Dressage Championships

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2015 New Zealand Dressage Championships

Penny Castle and the 10-year old Holsteiner Magnus Spero proved just too good at the 2015 New Zealand Dressage Championships on 5 - 8 March 2015, making a clean sweep of the three big tour classes in the CDI 3* and winning the Grand Prix Challenge Final (68.26%), the Grand Prix Special (68.588%) and the Freestyle Trophy (72.35%) as well as the Burkner Medal for the NZ Championship.

Castle dominated from this competition from day one riding positively for every mark from this relatively young horse who made his international debut at the Australian Championships last October. Castle now has the NZ Horse of the Year (17-22 March) and Sydney CDI 3 * (May) in her sights looking to build on this latest winning streak.

Julie Brougham and Vom Feinstein were runners up to Castle in the Grand Prix and the Special but the big improver in Grand Prix since the beginning of the year is Vanessa Way and Arawn - yet another Anamour progeny doing well in the Way team. This horse has suddenly found a new level of confidence in the arena and they finished second to Castle in the Freestyle (70.1%) with Brougham 3rd on 68.325%

Jody Hartstone's Lusitano stallion Ali Baba proved to be a real crowd pleaser in the Freestyle scoring a 73% from Hong Kong's Alison King for the Artistic section and a Freestyle fourth placing (67.025%)

It was good to see Hannah Best and Zactac Graceful back in the arena after an injury lay off earlier in the season and their classical Freestyle shows a high degree of interpretation (66.9%)

The youngest rider in the field twenty year old Anya Noble, showed some class riding in her first CDI 3* and finished in sixth place (65.35%) in the after a very sympathetic ride on Airthrey Highlander. "Bowie" was one of the horses caught in torrential rain in the warm up and he just lacked his characteristic enthusiasm and elevation in the freestyle

William (Bill) Millar from Cambridge on the elegant de Niro gelding Raukura Satori completed the field (63.575%). This combination is new to this level and showed some very rhythmic piaffe and seamless transitions from passage to piaffe. The horse is an elegant type with natural cadence and this pair should be watched for the future

The CDI-Y was dominated by Catherine West and her two Anamour mounts Amici II and Anarocz, but was chased hard by Molly Lumb on Vanessa Way's KH Arvan who is improving with every outing as Lumb learns more about this level of competition under the guidance of Way.