Tribute To A Champion - Dreamtime Diva

This article is from the August 2020 Horse Deals magazine.

We all have our own Champions, some more so than others, but there is no doubting that Joanne Stewart’s Dreamtime Diva was a true recipient of the Champion acclimation. She burst on to the Royal Show Ring as a four-year-old and from nine Royal Shows attended, she was declared Champion seven times and Reserve Champion twice, and this is her tribute.

Foaled in February 2012, Diva was bred by Julie Conti at her successful Dreamtime Stud in Victoria. Julie has bred a number of very successful performance and show horses that both look good and perform well. Diva was by Dreamtime Xzibit that was by the well known Gumbanero. He is well bred as a sire of performance horses, going back via Contact to Cor de la Bryère on his sire line with the influential Thoroughbred, Black Pampas on his dam line. On his dam line, Xzibit featured two influential European imports, the Oldenburg, King and the Hanoverian, Lucano. Xzibit was a beautiful, big, showy horse. He was put over the Thoroughbred mare, Miss Libby Jane by the French stallion, Export Prince (Habitat, Sir Gaylord). Diva turned out a lovely horse, but as Julie comments; “she was smaller than I had hoped. I was hoping for something between 15 and 16 hands, but when I sold her she was under 15hh.”

“Julie Conti put a picture of Diva on Facebook when Mitch Fox was breaking her in,” says Greg Mickan. “I saw it and got in touch with Julie and asked if she was for sale. We bought her at the beginning of 2015 and we did quite a bit of work with her and in March that year took her to Deniliquin Show and a few others to qualify her for Adelaide Royal. However, before Adelaide, Joanne Stewart came to look at her with her sister Jennifer as a possible horse for her niece, Ainslie Quinn-Morris. They bought her with the understanding that we would take her to Adelaide and she would go up to NSW after that.

“Diva was a very good mover and we thought looked a real hunter type, but she was only six months broken in when she got to Adelaide and that first morning of the novice classes, she was terrified of the showjumps. Adelaide that year was a big eye-opener for her and she took one look at the showjumps and wanted to exit stage left. She worked well enough to win her Novice 14.2-15hh Show Hunter class and went on to be declared Best Novice Show Hunter Galloway. The next day for the Open classes, there was not a showjump on the arena and she won her Open and went on to be declared Champion Show Hunter Galloway. She was a tough, strong-willed horse and was very green when we had her, but I always thought that in the right hands she would go on to be very successful.”

“I was looking for a horse for myself at the time too,” says Joanne Stewart. “We all went down to Victoria to see Diva and I said to my sister, if you don’t buy her, I will. They bought her, but she proved to be a bit too young and green for Ainslie who was only 14 at the time; I wanted a show hunter, so I bought her. I felt she needed more education and I sent her to Jess Stones. I rang Jess a week after she arrived and she said she really liked her and was keen to show her. She stayed with Jess full time for about eight months, and in that time was Champion at Canberra Royal, Sydney Royal and the NSW SHC Horse of the Year Show.

“After Sydney Royal, I brought Diva home and she lived with me and was shown by Jess. I showed her a little myself, but because she became so successful so quickly, I kept Jess on her at most shows. Jess and Diva had just clicked and I always thought I would be doing the horse a disservice if I showed her. They got on so well and had such a great connection, so I rode her at home and prepared her, and Jess rode her at the shows. Jess trusted me to work her at home and present her for the ring; we had a successful thing going and it worked really well.”

“Diva was pretty full-on for a four-year-old,” says Jess Stones. “Even though she had done very well at Adelaide Royal, she was still green when she came to me and I put a lot of work into her. She was a very interesting and challenging horse. She was opinionated and had the attitude that it was her way or the highway. There was no point clashing with her, it was a matter of getting her to think that everything was her idea and that made the education process challenging. It was a case of three steps forward and two steps back, but we made progress and she really improved and went on to have a really successful run of shows where she won and won and won. She loved a big outdoor grass arena; she really worked there and that was her place more than the indoor environment.

“She was virtually unbeatable at Royal Shows and became a lovely ride, and the plan was to give her one more go this year to get to the Nationals. It doesn’t feel real; we had a plan in place for her, but now everything has stopped.”

“We didn’t overshow her,” continues Joanne, “because she was young and I thought we could stretch her showing career out a few more years. Last year I had a small window of opportunity to take some embryos from her before she resumed her showing commitments, so I sent her down to Jason James at Total Livestock Genetics in Victoria, because I knew Jason would look after her and they have such a good reputation. I had planned to get an embryo out of her every year. I drove her down in September and planned to pick her up before Christmas. When she got down there, she became a little unwell and just to be on the safe side, they sent her to the Ballarat Veterinary Clinic Equine Practice, one of the largest and most respected veterinary hospitals in the Southern Hemisphere to check her out and all seemed OK.

“In December of 2019, Diva developed an episode of colic whilst at TLG and was sent to the Ballarat Veterinary Practice for examination. TLG have their own veterinarians, but decided that Diva would be better cared for at BVP. On arrival, Diva was diagnosed with a twist of the large colon and was taken to surgery to correct the problem. Following a successful surgery, she recovered well and was sent home. However, it was advised not to travel her long distances such a short time after surgery, and as such she returned to TGH for follow up management.

“Roughly over month later, Diva became acutely colicy again and was sent back to BVP. This time they were able to identify larger than normal loops of small intestine on ultrasound, but the colic had resolved. As a precaution she was kept in the hospital for monitoring. On the third day, she became severely colicy and was taken to surgery where small intestine was found to be trapped in a space between the liver and the pancreas, a condition known as epiploic foramen entrapment. The surgery went well, however when Diva was recovering, she suffered a fatal heart attack. The veterinarians attempted to resuscitate her, but were unsuccessful.

“She had looked so well down there. She was a young, tough horse, so it was surprising and devastating at the same time. She died on the 12th of January. I still have the one embryo they took that has been fertilised by Rodrigo III, so it is to be hoped her memory and her success will be remembered through that. But it is early days yet.

“Diva was a once in a lifetime horse. If her foal develops the presence, personality and looks of its mother, I will be exceptionally happy. But there will only ever be one Dreamtime Diva; she certainly was well named. Diva in name and a Diva in looks and character.”

RESULTS

2015

Adelaide Royal: Best Novice Show Hunter Galloway & Champion Show Hunter Galloway

2016

Canberra Royal: Champion Show Hunter Galloway, Sydney Royal: Champion Show Hunter Galloway, SHC NSW HOTY: Champion Show Hunter Galloway

2017

Pacific Coast Hack Championships: Champion Show Hunter Galloway, Canberra Royal: Champion Show Hunter Galloway, Equifest: Champion Show Large Hunter Galloway, Sydney Royal: Champion Show Hunter Galloway, Adelaide Royal: Champion Show Hunter Galloway, EA Championships: Champion Show Hunter Galloway, SHC NSW HOTY: Champion Show Hunter Galloway

2018

Canberra Royal: Champion Show Hunter Galloway, EA Southern Cross Hack Championships: Supreme Champion Show Hunter Hack, Sydney Royal: Reserve Champion Show Hunter Galloway, EA Championships: Champion Show Hunter Galloway, SHC NSW HOTY: Champion Show Hunter Galloway

2019

EA Southern Cross Hack Championships: Champion Show Hunter Galloway, Adelaide Royal: Reserve Champion Show Hunter Galloway

Article: Anna Sharpley

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