Tribute to Django of Cacharel

It would be impossible to guess how many people Django introduced to the delights of Grand Prix dressage. The Friesian stallion had it all: type, temperament, and talent. For the six or so years he was competing at Grand Prix, he and rider Jeremy Janjic filled more seats than any other combination. For starters, he was different; he was exciting, and he was fun to watch, and the bond between horse and rider was obvious. When they first hit the Grand Prix scene in 2011, they were the new kids on the block, both Jeremy and Django Grand Prix debutants. But interest in the black stallion had followed his career from the start. A few could not see past the feathers, but most saw talent and correctness. Outside the dressage arena, Django was in demand for photo shoots, music videos and films, and he enjoyed his part in Christmas festivities. “He just loved doing everything; nothing fazed him,” says Jeremy, and this is Django’s tribute.

Lynn and Dick Jenkin owned Django from the age of six months, and he enjoyed a happy retirement with them until his passing in March. Lynn takes up Django’s story.

“I grew up in England and always liked the heavier style of horse. I had a Thoroughbred mare and wanted to put her in foal to a not-so-tall, bigger-boned horse. Friesians had not been on my radar in those days. When I failed to find a suitable Warmblood, I saw an advertisement for a Friesian stallion. I bred her and had a part-bred foal, but having seen the stallion, I decided that I wanted a Friesian, so I bought a little mare. I took her along to the first Keuring (Friesian classification) held in Australia with Dutch judges. I saw an imported mare there, Renske fan e’ Olde Hoek and thought, ‘wow, that’s what they are supposed to look like’. She had been imported by Carl Mitchell, in foal to Pike. I asked Mitchell if the foal was for sale, and he said no. She had a colt (Django), and Mitchell was persuaded to sell him because the only other horse he had was his mother. Mitchell bred Briard dogs, and his stud name was Cacharel, which he also used for his horse stud. Django was named not after the famous jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt but after a famous Briard dog. When I got the call, did I still want him? I said, ‘Where do I sign?’ So he came to us as a six-month-old weanling called Django of Cacharel. He was an outstanding foal and very personable in every way.”

“Django briefly stopped at our place on his way to Lynn and Dick’s,” explains Jeremy. “He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Everyone fell in love with him straight away that day. I had broken in horses for Lynn and Dick, and a few years later, Django came to be broken in as a rising four-year-old. For a baroque-style horse, Django was quite tall at 16.1hh, and when he was up and going, he looked taller. He was easy to break in, and after eight weeks, he went back to Lynn’s for a break, and then he came back to me to be trained, and he was with me from then on.

“He was a serving stallion the entire time I had him. He was always beautifully behaved when serving. I would like to say that his good behaviour was training, but he was just a nice person, a one-in-a-million type of horse. We did a lot of kilometres as we progressed up the dressage ranks, and the safest place for a stallion when you are at competitions was always on the truck, and sometimes they could stand on the truck for four or five hours. So, my grooms would just hop on him and walk him around and just keep him walking, and he became so used to that, and he became casual and relaxed about competitions. He did so much travelling as a Grand Prix horse that he got used to everything.

“He progressed normally through the grades, probably a level a year. I was new at it, too. I had only ridden to novice, so we were both learning along the way; we looked after each other. He was my first Grand Prix horse, and I was spoilt; I was very lucky. I trained with Heath Ryan and went for a lesson every week, and Heath loved him. When we first started piaffe, Django would kick his belly; he lifted his back legs so high. It was very exciting, and passage and piaffe were his strengths. His passage was just beautiful.

“Our first Grand Prix was at the Alexander Park Dressage Club at Raymond Terrace in October 2011. It was the first Grand Prix for the both of us. At the start, the changes were a struggle, but they started to really improve once I started the one tempi changes, because they just made him a little quicker behind. Heath was not competing at Alexander Park, but he just came to watch Django.

“The Grand Prix Freestyle was our favourite test, and we rode to music from Kung Fu Panda. Everyone got to know that was Django’s music, and it suited him so well. People would travel for miles just to watch him and see him in the flesh. When we were in New Zealand, one woman travelled six hours just to see him. Equitana was our favourite show, you just couldn’t beat the atmosphere. The audience was so close and Django just loved a crowd. In 2015, we were meant to be on a Team to New Zealand, but one of the others had to pull out, and it was too late to organise anyone else, so I was sent as an individual to represent Australia. It was amazing for me to wear the Australian flag and represent my country. I got my best-ever scores in New Zealand. I never used to waste his energy in the warm-up. The other riders would look at me as if I would just be walking for 25 minutes. I made sure he moved off my leg, did a little passage and piaffe and one change and in I went. He didn’t have a lot of energy, so that had to be well-maintained.

“Django was a big, heavy horse, so towards the end of his career, his hocks gave him a bit of grief, but he always gave his best. At the Sydney CDI in April 2016, his passage and piaffe were his feature movements, and I could feel him struggling in the piaffe. That’s when I sat down with Lynn and decided that Equitana at the end of the year would be his last competition. That year, he did the CDI and then Equitana in December. As soon as he heard his music, he knew what to do. He officially retired at Equitana in Melbourne. After the official retirement ceremony, I was leading him around the arena, and they played his freestyle music, and he started to passage. People came from all over Australia to watch him, and my family was there. I cried for about a week beforehand, and three-quarters of the way through the Grand Prix the day before, I was in tears. Equitana did an amazing job of giving Django such a wonderful send-off. I really wanted to be able to retire him, not break him down. He owed me nothing, and I owed him everything. He deserved a happy retirement, and he got that at Lynn and Dick’s.

“As a breeding stallion, he attracted a lot of mares, and not just Friesians. He got sport mares and bred very well with Warmblood and Thoroughbred mares. I have had a lot of his progeny. People ring or message: ‘have you got any Django babies for sale?’ You never see them for sale, as once someone gets one, they don’t sell them. One woman had a foal out of an Ilkay mare and took it with her when she moved to France, and brought it back with her when she returned to Australia.

“Django had a good sense of humour and loved being dressed up as Santa at Dressage With The Stars when it was held in December. I would come cantering in, ringing a bell and throwing lollies to the crowd, and he wouldn’t miss a beat; he was a real showman. He was a very well-behaved stallion and did a music video and a film, and was in demand for photo shoots. I remember doing a music video with a Indonesian Singer on Stockton Beach. We had to walk way down the beach for the shoot, and as I was walking back, a woman walking a dog coming towards me came up and said: ‘excuse me, is that Django of Cacharel?’

“I was with him from breaking in, right ’till the end. Old age and his career caught up with him. Even now, eight years after retiring, people remember him and have put up beautiful posts and sent kind messages.

“He happened to be a Grand Prix dressage horse because that was the direction we took him in,” continues Lynn Jenkin. “Whilst he could not have been an eventer or a showjumper at the same level, he would have given it a red hot go, and he would have fitted in; he just loved being part of everything. At the Sydney CDI, they used to take the visiting school kids around to see Django, not just because he was pretty, but because they knew he would be gentle and kind and give people his attention. They would get an experience of being with a horse and not just a tour of the stables.

“After he retired, he stayed at Jeremy’s for a while breeding. But we had frozen semen, and when he showed signs of a bit of arthritis, we used that and retired him from natural breeding because we didn’t want to risk hurting him. After that, he lived a life of luxury here for many years and spent his days in the paddock with his son. It became harder for him to have routine maintenance. Things like trimming his feet caused issues for him. When he was first here, he would come cantering up the paddock whenever he saw someone, but I hadn’t seen him canter for a while. Friesians are not known as a long-lived breed, and there was the fear that something would happen to him when we weren’t home, and I didn’t want that to happen. I didn’t want him to get down and not be able to get up. He is buried on the property close to his friends who have gone before him.

“There will never be another Django. He was the people’s horse, and they enjoyed what they saw. He is irreplaceable.”

Article: Anna Sharpley.

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