Equestrian Legends - Carolyn Lieutenant

As seen in the July 2017 edition of Horse Deals Magazine

Time and place have a great deal to do with the decisions we make. When the idea was proposed for a series of articles on the people who have contributed so much to equestrian sport in Australia, we were at the recent Sydney CDI. We first attended the CDI when it was at Lochinvar in 1994. A couple of things blew us away at that event and one of them was Caroline Lieutenant doing piaff pirouettes and tempi changes, one handed aboard her wonderful Thoroughbred, Temuchin in the Grand Prix Freestyle. “Wow” we thought at the time and indeed, “wow” could be a description of Carolyn’s outstanding and multi faceted career with horses. From Dressage, to Showjumping to Showing and Eventing, she has not only done it all, but done it with enormous success. Still very involved as owner and mentor, we could think of no better person than Carolyn Lieutenant née Law to get this series up and running.

“I grew up on a farm about an hour out of Gisborne in New Zealand,” begins Carolyn. “We had to find our own fun and entertainment and I used to ride the cow and train the calf; ride the station hacks and I virtually taught myself to ride. I didn’t have a saddle in the beginning, I had a sack with a surcingle, because I didn’t like riding bareback all the time because the horses got hot. We built jumps and did all sorts of things with the horses and we learnt natural balance. Pony Club arrived in the area and we had very good horsemen there and we learnt really good basics. I got quite a wild pony that was a bit hot, but he turned out to be a really good eventer, as he was quite a good mover. I progressed through the ranks of Pony Club and in New Zealand in the winter we hunted and evented, and in the summer we did showing and showjumping. Someone gave me a good old horse that was originally a rabbiter’s horse, that used to jump up on to the flat tray of a truck when the rabbiter went off hunting. For two years he was a really good showjumper for me and I won some quite big classes.

“As a young adult I went to England for a couple of years, as I had family there. During that time I did my British Horse Society AI Certificate at Robert Hall’s Fulmer Equestrian Centre. We had a good time with Robert Hall. I was there with a friend from New Zealand and they found that we were good workers. When the trucks came in loaded with feed, Robert would say; where are those New Zealanders? Whilst at Fulmer I went to Badminton a couple of times, but had no ambition to ride there. However, I competed in the first Three Day Event conducted in New Zealand at Rotorua. Thirteenth after the dressage, I had a magic endurance day and ended up fourth.

“We had instructors coming to New Zealand and Hungarian instructor, Kalman de Jurenak, who had migrated to Australia was one of them. He was reasonably impressed with my riding, so much so, that when he started his Tibor Equestrian Centre at Kellyville not far out of Sydney, he rang and asked me if I would like to come over and be his working pupil. When I came to Sydney with Karl, He had a group of what we would now call “galloping housewives”. Pam Rose (Vicki Roycroft’s mother) was amongst them and also Anne and Ross Field who owned the Hack, Mazeppa were involved at Tibor as well. I was very lucky as I ended up riding Mazeppa for the Fields’ and the showjumper, Harvest Time for the Rose family. Ross Field trained Mazeppa with Karl and when Ross wasn’t able to ride him at shows because of business commitments, I rode him. Vicki Rose was too young to ride Harvest Time then, so I rode him for about 18 months.

“I rode Mazeppa to Champion Hack at Melbourne Royal in 1971. After that they asked me if I would like to ride him in the Garryowen the following year, because they would like to have their horse in the class. I wasn’t really one for convention and was perhaps a bit naive and blasé at the time. They all wanted me to go in it, so I said OK. But I was determined I wasn’t going to buy brand new stuff that I didn’t need. I bought new boots and a bowler hat and everything else except the breeches were borrowed. I did not want to get kersey wool breeches that I would never use again. I bought a pair of Harry Hall stretch breeches and the Fields’ had their tailor put buttons and button holes on them. And I refused to wear a lanyard! Costume of course was my lowest mark. But, big noting myself at the time, I thought, I was Champion Lady Rider on the Champion Hack and I would get enough points that way and I did and won in 1972. During that time I won four Lady Rider Championships at Sydney and back at Melbourne Royal I won the Alice Laidlaw Trophy for Lady Rider Over Obstacles riding Harvest Time. (The Alice Laidlaw was a very big class at the time with as many as 60 entrants, including the who’s who of female jumping riders).

“At Tibor I met John Lieutenant and we eventually married and bought a property at Galston. I then started out on my own, teaching. I had started to specialise in dressage when I was still at Tibor, because I couldn’t travel to the shows, I had to be there to teach and I liked dressage anyway. When we bought the property, I bought a very hot chestnut horse from Warren Pratley called Crinan. He had raced all his life and we ended up winning the first Group III Haig Cup International Dressage Competition* in 1982. Sadly John passed away before I got Temuchin (Tim). He was a Thoroughbred and he had raced fairly indifferently at places like Scone. He was in a paddock starving and was rescued by a girl who worked for Clemens Dierks. Clemens told her to sell him and I bought him and had quite a bit of success with him. He was a ripper of a horse; a real trier. In the beginning he was really hot, but he had a natural ability to sit on his hind legs and bend all his joints and had a really good piaffe. He was able to do all sorts of difficult things, but he wasn’t good at extensions. Tim did not have much trot at all. We had the piaffe and then once we got the passage we just rode him forward out of it and he learnt, just by practice to have that moment of suspension that he never had in the beginning. The last time Tim ever had a saddle on him was the presentation day of the 2000 Para Equestrian Olympics. He was a loan horse for the Games and by that time he was so quiet you could put anyone on him. He was a great school horse and I put all my Para Equestrians on him. At the end of those Games he went back to the paddock and never had a saddle on him after that. He is my favourite horse. I tried other horses after Tim, but never found anything and then decided it was a good time to stop. Older riders and young horses do not always work out and I thought; if I can’t ride all the time, don’t ride at all.

“I bought a mare, Esprita by the Anglo Arab, Victorieux out of a Thoroughbred, Percheron cross from my friend, Eleanor Russell. She was not such a good horse to ride, so I decided to breed from her. I put her to the closest stallion, Salute and the result was Victory Salute. I never rode Sam, but I was very much involved in his training. He was originally trained by Matthew Dowsley and Rodney Martin who did a marvelous job. Sam spent a year out in the paddock as a young horse with Ross River Fever. When he was fit again he went back to Matthew and when Matthew went overseas in 2005/2006 with Cinderella, he wanted to take Sam with him. I said no, as I wanted my horse here.

Brett Parbery was in need of a horse at the time and the then Australian Dressage Team advisor, Ulla Saltzgeber suggested he try for the ride on Victory Salute. We had a couple of amazing trips overseas with him, culminating in him being ninth in the world at the 2010 WEG in Kentucky. At the 2008 Beijing Para Olympics in Hong Kong, Georgia Bruce rode him for two Bronze medals and she had only been riding him for four weeks. Victory Salute was an amazing horse, he was so forgiving and so honest; he would have laid down his life for you. In the beginning, he didn’t like the discipline at all; he was quite naughty, but in the end he was a fantastic horse.

“I’m just really interested in being an owner these days. The thing with horses is getting the right combination of horse and rider, with the right training and the opportunity to show that. A whole lot of things have to come together and a good owner is very much in the mix. I have formed a good relationship with Mark Kiddle, whose riding style and outlook with horses I really appreciate and I have become good friends with Mark and his partner Mal (Malcolm MacRae). I just feel that it would be nice for Mark to have one really good horse, because he would love to ride Grand Prix. We bought a horse, Waitano, a lovely horse, a good Prix St Georges horse, but just too laid back for Grand Prix. I just love being an owner and that’s my connection with horses now. We are spending the month of May in Europe looking for a horse and I hope we come back with something.”

*The FEI Haig Cup was the forerunner to the Samsung competition. International judges would travel from country to country judging horses at Prix St Georges level to determine a winner.

Written by Anna Sharpley.

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