Two Young Champions by Bellhaven Coraldo 🏆

These two young horses are only 5-years-old and are winning against the best in the country. Bellhaven Coraldo would only serve 3-6 mares a year, and even though only young himself, has produced the top Young Eventer in the country with Bellhaven Cumbria, who has won 5-year-old Event Horse of the year at Melbourne 3DE, 1st at Figtree Pocket Pre-Novice, 1st at Tambourine CNC1* and 1st at Wallaby Hill CCI 1*. Congratulations to her owners, Maureen & Jason Johnstone and rider, Matt Gaske.

Also, a couple of weeks later, Bellhaven Chanceux who is also by Coraldo, won the 5-year-old Prestigious Judges Choice at the Young Horse final for Showjumpers at SIEC for his lovely owner, Izzie Stone. Both owners love their horses to bits which gives David Green and I a huge amount of pleasure. We would like to thank our wonderful sponsors, Rose-Hip Vital Equine, Mi-Feed and Horseland.

BELLHAVEN CATO

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Another young colt sold to New Zealand who will be standing at stud with Vicki Wilson. He is only two, but a real beauty.
I have had interest from New Zealand about using Bellhaven Coraldo, however, the quarantine is quite difficult so perhaps consider Cato instead as he is absolutely gorgeous!

BELLHAVEN KARPE DIEM

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We sold this boy as a rising 2-year-old to New Zealand. He is by Kannan, out of our beautiful mare, Bellhaven Georgie.
He will be put up for licensing in New Zealand.
It is lovely to see him blossoming and we wish his owners all the best!

Some of the last years’ babies whose bloodlines combine the progenies of European Champions; Kraque Boom, Tornesch, Cardento, Diamant de

Semilly, Monte Bellini, Silvio, Coraldo, Quick Star, Quidam de Reval and Plot Blue.
They always look a bit scruffy at this age, but our youngsters are always out in the paddock playing. They are fed twice a day and have their feet trimmed regularly. They are always up to see you when we have visitors.

It was great to catch up with a long term friend, and one of my jumping coaches George Morris last month at Kolora Lodge. I believe George must be one of the very best jumping coaches of all time. George is very classical in his teaching with no short cuts. Horses must be trained on the flat to allow the jumping to happen, and his attention to detail on the riders position is second to none. George has trained and produced a number of the best riders in the sport world wide, and is thought of by many as a legend.

 

Vicki Roycroft does a wonderful job each year bringing this master of show jumping to our shores. I was very disappointed by how few of our Australian riders attended his clinics on horse and on foot. New South Wales lead the way, where the clinics are well attended with riders like Tom McDermott, Chris Chugg, Jess Brown, Andrew Inglis, Colleen Brook, our own Bellhaven riders Vicki Roycroft and Stephen Dingwall, and many more top riders. In Queensland it is a very different story, our show jumpers up here must believe they are too good to receive help from one of the worlds best (I wonder what any of these riders have achieved at international events?). The Queensland clinic was held on the beautiful property of Michelle and Peter McMahon, there were 18 in the clinic and only 5 of the riders were world cup riders. 3 of them were young riders and the rest of the clinic was made up with eventers. All these riders will go on and improve and will keep going in the right direction, where the rest of the Queensland riders will get washed down the river and never make it on an International scale – in my opinion.

 

I will not mention the Victorian riders as I do not want to offend any one, but some of their reasons for not attending are….too expensive (the clinic cost no more than competing in a good show), and horses are not in work. Well go along and watch and learn to improve yourself.

 

As soon as you start to believe you know it all is the day you stop learning.

 

David

I will be typing a blog on the Bellhaven web site twice a month, about what is happening in the Equestrian World, the changes I have seen in the sport since I have moved back home, and other points that I find of interest.

The sport of Show Jumping and eventing is not getting any cheaper, and unless you are financially very well off, most competitors need help, as in having owners to help with the many expenses involved with in the sport.

I was very lucky in my competition career as I only ever had 3 owners the whole time. The reason for this,  I looked after them like gold dust. I would send my owners a yearly programme for each horse and the goals I wanted to achieve with them. At each competition if my owners were not there I would call them and let them know how their horses competed at the event (before I hopped into the truck to drive home). My owners became close friends and the commutation lines were always kept open.

Since I have been back home in Australia, I have seen far to many examples of riders not treating owners with the respect they deserve. Such as not knowing when their horse is competing at a 3 day event, finding out on Facebook how their horse did in a competition, not sending pics of their horse competing when asked to etc etc etc . Then these short term thinking riders start crying like a baby when the horses are taken off them. Well my answer to them is no owners, no horses. If you are lucky enough to bag yourself an owner, make sure you treat them like GOLD.

Deb and I are very happy and lucky with our current Bellhaven riders, as they are on the phone to us all the time keeping us very informed on each and every horse they ride.

The Boneo Classic is a new show on the World Cup circuit. Boneo Park is on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, and boasts a state of the art equestrian facility with booth international indoor and outdoor arenas.

Jono and Vicki will be competing the this years event. Vicki will compete both bellhaven Jazz and Bellhaven Sanskript, while Jono will be competing Bellhaven Carouse in the Stars of the Future class.