Mary Hanna Secures Ivanhoe as Second 2024 Paris Olympic Hopeful

Dressage

Australia

Australian multi-Olympian Mary Hanna has secured a second young Grand Prix horse for her 2024 Paris Olympic campaign. Hanna bought Ivanhoe in The Netherlands.

Ivanhoe is a 10-year old KWPN gelding by Desperado out of Pirouette ID (by Jazz x Komeet). He is bred by S. Waterschoot uit Hoogeloon, The Netherlands.

Ivanhoe - Icecream

The black gelding has been going by and competing in The Netherlands under two names, as Ivanhoe and as Icecream.

Owned by Petra van Oostrum, Ivanhoe was trained to Grand Prix level by Margreet Prosman.

In 2016 they were 22nd in the VSN Trophy finals for 3-year olds and in 2017 they competed in the Pavo Cup semi-finals and were 26th. Two years later the pair placed 10th in the 6-year old division of the 2019 Pavo Cup Finals.

They twice tried out for Dutch team selection for the 2019 and 2020 World Young Horse Championships, but did not make the cut. Prosman rode Ivanhoe in his first national Grand Prix test on 8 April 2022 and scored 65.109%.

Australia

In May of 2022 Ivanhoe sold as a sales horse to Helgstrand Dressage. He was most recently stabled in Germany with Kittel where Mary Hanna tried him out and bought him.

The horse is currently in quarantine in Europe and will fly to Australia soon, where he'll join Hanna's 10-year old Impress Taonga (by Vitalis x Hotline x Alabaster x Bolero) which she bought in Holland in the summer.

"These two nine-year-old horses will be my main focus now in my campaign for Paris," Hanna told Equestrian Life. "They have both been competing at Prix St Georges level, but we are working on the Grand Prix movements. They are very different types of horses, but both are quite talented I feel."

Hanna has been training with Henri Ruoste and tried to compete Calanta at the 2022 World Championships in Herning in August but had to pull out last minute. Paris could be Mary's seventh Olympics in her career.

"My plans are always a bit fluid according to how the horses go and what curve balls are sent my way," she explained to Equestrian Life. "If Paris happens (..) that would be great. It would be my seventh Olympics, but after all these campaigns, it’s not the end of the world if I don’t make it."