Brett Parbery Loses ride on Terry Snow's Grand Prix Hopeful, Spot On

Dressage

Australia

Australian dressage team rider Brett Parbery has lost the ride on the rising Grand Prix horse, Spot On.

The horse returned to his owner Terry Snow at Willinga Park on Saturday 6 March 2021.

Collaboration Parbery - Snow

In December 2017 Parbery agreed to close his own yard in Penrose, NSW and relocate to Bawley Point, NSW, as Terry Snow's head rider.

"Terry Snow and I agreed that we would join forces," Parbery told Eurodressage. "I was to bring my business – Parbery Performance Horses - to Willinga Park and assist him to bring his newly built equestrian centre to the industry as a place for competitions and as a place of high performance training. He had been trying for 2 years but couldn’t break into the industry. At that stage, our stable was performing really well. We had top horses and top owners, but I was working 7 days per week and my family were suffering as I was never home. I thought it would be a good opportunity to bring my family and my work all to one place, where we could lead a normal life and be a family man."

Australian billionaire Terry Snow had been developing Willinga Park, probably Australia's most posh equestrian center in the country, and needed an experienced dressage rider at the helm. The horse facility, which is rumoured to have cost more than $100 million AUD, caters to all equestrian disciplines and recently expanded to include show jumping and eventing. Snow made his fortune as a commercial property developer and owner of Canberra airport.

The first year, Parbery spent the majority of his time as part of the management team.

"I hardly had any time to ride my dressage horses. I was still able to just qualify Weltmeiser to WEG, but other than him, I wasn’t riding any dressage horses," said Brett. "I spent most of my time trying to sort out his other interest - breeding stock horses."

Source Horses

That first year he did get the opportunity to travel around Europe to source new dressage horses for Snow. He returned down under with three irons in the fire: Fusion, Theodore, and Spot On.

The now 8-year old Danish warmblood stallion Spot On (by Sezuan x Solos Carex) was found in the stables of Christian and Vivi Vang Lauridsen in Denmark. He was previously competed in the Danish young horse classes by Camilla Ahlers Pedersen and Frederico Mexia de Almeida.

Goodbye Willinga Park

In 2019, Snow and Parbery agreed that Brett would focus more on riding again. Unfortunately Tokyo hopeful Theodore died in June 2019 from a cancerous tumour near his right kidney.

"I didn’t want to sit in meetings and deal with anymore stock horses. I only wanted to concentrate on my team of dressage horses. I then spent from January 2019 to October 2019 riding just the dressage team. This was better, but we lost Theodore and that took a lot of energy from the stable. Then in October 2019, I was bucked off Quincy on my fourth ride on him and broke my leg really badly," said Brett.

Megan Bryant was hired to temporarily take over Brett's horses while he recovered from his injury. At the same time Terry added Jayden Brown to the team.

In the autumn of 2019, Parbery decided to leave Willinga Park.

"While I was laid up with a broken leg (...) I felt I had no control over my future and told Willinga Park that I was not going to renew my contract from November 2019," said Brett.

Spot On Stays

While Parbery left the majority of the horses in the capable hands of Brown, he made an agreement with Snow to retain the ride on the very tall Spot On.

Over the year the horse developed into a schooling Grand Prix horse, but there was little opportunity to show him.

"We had severe bushfires in our area and we spent most of January and some of February (2020) dealing with fires," Brett explained. "I returned to riding in mid February 2020. In March 2020, Covid hit Australia, and everything shut down. Terry contacted me to take the horse home as he had to reduce his costs because his businesses were suffering."

The pair made its return to the show ring in November 2020 and showed in two Medium level competitions as both hadn't competed since September 2019.

"I wanted to have an easy test for us both," he said. "His training at home is nearly ready for Grand Prix. He has all of the piaffe passage and the pirouettes and is in the process of learning the sequence changes and the zig zag. He also is just 8 and very very big, so I have been mindful to not put him under too much competition pressure, especially in the lower levels which as you know is not always akin to good Grand Prix riding."

Last weekend Parbery successfully competed the 8-year old Spot On at Medium Level at the national show at Willinga Park. They pair placed fourth in the Medium 4B test with 69.685% and third in the Medium 4C test with 70.449%. Two years ago, the horse also competed at this level at Bawley Point.

Parbery's plan for 2021 was to move Spot On up to Prix St Georges level mid year and aim for the 2021 Australian Small Tour Championships later that year.

Goodbye Spot On

On 6 March 2021 Parbery announced that Spot On has returned to Willinga Park.

"When I left Willinga Park in November 2019, Terry and I agreed that I would continue to train Spotty towards Grand Prix at my own cost. With the word of two men as the handshake we embarked on the last 12 months with great enthusiasm," Parbery took to social media. "Sadly it’s not to be and today Spot On goes back to the south coast of NSW."

"Although I’ll miss him greatly and will always think about what could have been," Brett added on social media. "I’m only looking forward and am excited to welcome the next generation of horses into our stable."