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Pelling Hangs Up His Reins in Spain

This article is from the December 2019 Horse Deals magazine.

Photo: Lily Forado.

Photo: Lily Forado.

Anthony Pelling has returned to Theodore in Central Queensland. After fifteen years at a stud in Spain, he has decided to come home - and become an electrician.

He worked with Ignacio Candau breaking-in, training and showing Andalusians. He became Candau Stud’s head rider, was the first Australian ever to compete at SICAB (a prestigious national show dedicated exclusively to purebred Spanish horses), and regularly rode at international dressage events in open company. Over the years he had his own horses and stables where he would work after doing eight hours at Candau, and he also bred and sold a few.

Anthony’s last overseas performance was in August 2018 at the World Breeding Dressage Championships for Young Horses in The Netherlands. He rode in the Stallion Inter 1 Freestyle on the talented Napoleon Candau placing fifth with just under 70%.

“When we entered the main stadium at Ermelo it was a feeling I’ll never forget. I just felt Napoleon grow - he knew how big this moment was.” Anthony had trained him up through all the stages. He was a very special stallion with enormous potential.

“He was just beginning Grand Prix; he was gentle and needed time to develop.” Together they might have gone on to do great things on the world stage. But it was time to leave.

“It’s not a job, it’s a lifestyle,” describes Anthony. “A demanding profession where you get very little time to yourself. It became too complicated to have a life and be successful with the horses. And I didn’t have control over the stallions.”

Sometimes, after a lengthy bout of serving mares, they would come back and Anthony had to compete on them the very next day.

Photo: Lily Forado.

Photo: Lily Forado.

He recalled an incident prior to the SICAB Championships: “I was promised I didn’t have to ride there, then at the last minute I was told I had to compete in a kur. At 4am I was given the music so I had to ring for the stable hand to get the horse out and light up the arena so I could ride the test to the music. Then four hours later all the horses left for the show in a truck. “Maybe it’s an Andalusian way of thinking!”
“I did love my job, I love riding. It was difficult to leave but I couldn’t see it working in the long term. So I decided to sell everything, come home, study electrical engineering and work in the local mine.”
Before he went to Spain all those years ago Anthony had gained some experience with Andalusians and had an introduction to dressage; he had even ridden in Portugal when he was only 14.

His parents, Ron and Mary-Lou, purchased their first pure Spanish horse in 1998 – Rangemore Silverado. He stood with the Pellings’ Brahmans and performance horses at their Willtony Stud on the Dawson River south of Theodore.

Anthony would go to clinics with his mother where she worked with Jose Mendez, now based in New South Wales, and with Nadine Francois, a former student and family friend of the late classical dressage master Nuno Oliveira. He was invited to train under Nadine for three months in Portugal.

“The first two were very difficult,” he recalled, “because I had to ride without stirrups. With my position changing and evolving every day my muscles used to kill me at night, but pushing through it really made me focus and try harder. Dodge, who was an Oliveira-trained stallion over 20 years old, knew every trick in the book and I’d drag my feet to the stables whenever I had to ride him. However, by the end of three months, I was able to do pretty much all the movements of a Grand Prix test.”

Once back from Portugal, young Anthony continued with his studies and was awarded an equestrian scholarship at the Kooralbyn International School. It closed during his first year there, reopening a couple of years later. Transferring to Scotts School, Warwick, he helped map out the school’s equestrian programme. During this time he met Ignacio Candau, considered one of the world’s most successful Andalusian breeders, who had come to Australia from Seville to meet other breeders of Spanish horses, such as Anthony’s parents. He also wanted to improve his English.

Ignacio spent his first night in Theodore fighting fires (had he arrived three years later he would have been battling floods).

“We got on very well together at that time and he invited me to Spain. Once I was there I thought I knew what I wanted to do with my life – to become a professional dressage rider and competitor. We went to the Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art in Jerez which is where I met dressage Olympian Rafael Soto.

“I decided to have Spanish lessons and sit for the Royal School exams which consist of both theory and practical elements. If you can’t pass the theory you can’t take the other. The Spanish textbooks covered everything to do with horse care and management, training techniques and dressage history.”

He took the exam and failed. He returned to Australia, obtained a one-year student visa and went back to Seville.

He studied the language with a vengeance, continued riding at Candau and every week drove for an hour-and-a-half to Soto in Jerez.

“Back then he charged $US100. My parents helped with these lessons as I wasn’t earning much with Ignacio,” said 33-year-old Anthony. Such dedication and determination still didn’t result in success.
He had two more attempts at the exam.

“Both times I passed the theory and the practical with awesome percentages, but for some strange reason I’d always just miss out by one or two points – the school only takes six people a year. “The Royal School is somewhat ‘clicky’.”

But he was still learning. “I began showing a lot of improvement,” said Anthony. “I was understanding what dressage was and Rafael opened my mind to new methods. I was learning not just how to ride but to train. I rode with him for nearly three years.

Photo: Cátia Castro.

Photo: Cátia Castro.

“Every school has its way of doing things. There are so many methods to help with training dressage horses these days. Not everything works on all horses, some need a specific type of work to build certain muscles; you have to assess how much you use of that technique and whether the horse can handle it. It all comes back to how professional and intelligent the rider is. You could say that the German school is more about having its horses straight and on the bit, the general outline of the Spanish horses, even early in their training, is rounder as they do exhibitions which involve lots of collected movements.
“They don’t talk in ‘levels’ like Preliminary through to GP, but in years – so over there if you have a five-year-old which can’t do a flying change you’re stuffed.”
“Anyway, a good horse is a good horse whether it’s Spanish, German, English or French. The difference I felt when riding at Candau was how gifted they were in piaffe and passage. Also, they tend to be easier to train as they have a very good nature, but of course, you’ll always find some bad nuts in the bunch.”
Anthony never tried to emulate any particular rider when training and competing. “I always did the best I could in a way which allowed me to achieve my goals with the horse I was on without causing problems, confusion or injury. Not everyone has a picture-perfect position, but if it allows them to effectively communicate with their horses and achieve harmony, and they have an open mind, I don’t think you need to change what you’re doing to look like someone else.”
During his time overseas one of his great influences came not from a Spaniard but from a Dutchman. Olympian Bert Rutten, based at Hunsel in the Netherlands, had trained his country’s dressage team for Athens. Today he is a coach, a breeder and chairman of the dressage stallion grading committee.
“As far as I’m concerned the best way for recognition is in the arena.”
“He was my mentor for my whole equestrian life and I’d work with him at least five times a year. He had a good sense of humour, just like my dad.

“When you’d do something well he’d say ‘good’ and that’s that. Not go on with ‘wow’, ‘great stuff’, ‘good work’ and all the other stuff. So many trainers are just salesmen and full of bull****.

“In hindsight, perhaps I should have moved on to Holland. I had many offers to go to other places - I was tempted but I was really missing my family.”

He attended some great shows and saw some very fine riders. He would compete in Grand Prix classes with 30 others, and against 50 in Prix St Georges riding against all different breeds. And he did it well.
He witnessed Charlotte Dujardin doing some promotions with Valegro and watched her compete on another horse at Jerez de la Frontera. “It was named Barolo. Carl Hester took over, later winning some major events and the chestnut was then bought by the Japan Racing Association which sponsors Tokyo 2020 hopeful Kazuki Sado. “This rider almost ended up with Batuta, a renowned Lusitano mare, and then the deal fell through.”

But clearly, there is an increasing interest in both Spanish and Portuguese breeds as performance horses in the Olympic disciplines. There were always a few on the international circuit and numbers are increasing.

There is a demand for them here, especially on the dressage scene, and many Australian owners have been delighted at the news of Anthony’s homecoming and are keen for some lessons.

He is not a great self-promoter. “I’ve never been big on marketing, posting on Facebook, Instagram and all that hashtag stuff. In Spain, I just did my thing. I trained and I rode and as far as I’m concerned the best way for recognition is in the arena.”

The fact that he’s now gone into a mine doesn’t mean he’s divorced himself from horses. “At the moment the main priority is my job, but I’ve been approached to give clinics and I do like helping people.
Next year I’ll be working for five days and then have five days off – there will be plenty of time to do some coaching.”

Meanwhile, he’ll be enjoying his family, and closely following the progress of the Spanish horses in Australia.

Written by Suzy Jarratt.


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