Anyone that has known me throughout the equestrian fields is very likely to know a about my top horse Melanion (known as Mel to us).
Almost all of my past top level experience has been with Mel. I therefore feel this profile about
Mel shall be a tribute to the great memories he has provided me. I know that without ever having Mel to train and compete I would certainly not be the rider I am today.
Mel has never been short of character, there has been many times when trying to catch him.
He would lunge himself around me and keep just out of my reach.
Has anyone ever seen a horse laugh?
When saddling, bridling, booting and anything else that involves touching him,he would attach himself to anything he could get his teeth into, including lead-rope, fence post, my shirt and on one occasion an unsuspecting dog walking underneath his head.
If he ever accidentally bit my arm he would instantly plead that he was only joking.
Showing that beneath his tough guy exterior he was a real softee.
Melanion was bred by his current owners, Christine and David Bullock for the original purpose of producing a hunter for David.
After he was first backed it was evident that he had considerable talent towards jumping.
My initial attempts in training him were hampered by not only my lack of experience (in training horses) but also his painfully slow development.
Melanion wasn`t fully grown and developed until he was eight years old.
My initial plan was to train him as an eventer. But with his very difficult temperament (especially with flatwork) and fantastic aptitude towards jumping I decided to focus on showjumping.
Despite his considerable talents, riding, training and jumping Mel was extremely difficult.
He had an explosively hot temperament and an iron will, while being incredibly sensitive and intelligent.
In later times I have learnt that the only way to train him was to be determined, firm and persistent without losing your cool with him.
Unfortunatly, losing my cool was too easy to do.
This often required hours of painstaking work and changes on how I rode him as he worked out the present way very quickly!
Despite these difficulties, he always seemed to know when the important competitions were on (when lots of people are watching him) and rose to those occasions.
By the beginning of 1991 I had managed upgrade him to "B" grade.
Many people at the time felt that a more professional rider would better serve him.
This made me put a lot of pressure on myself to prove my worth.
During my first equestrian job, a combination of bad advice (to jump him in classes he was not ready for),
me so badly wanting jump these classes and a wind problem caused him to start stopping at fences and flip out half way round the courses.
After having the operation that successfully cured his wind problem I still had the problems with his stopping at fences and temperamental instability.
He would not have realised that the operation had helped his breathing.
The next couple of years were fraught with frustration.
We had some exceptional performances followed by more disasters.
We had no consistency!
It was only when I was working for David Goodin that we started getting some consistency.
David made me work through his problems rather than avoiding any confrontations.
I took pains to avoid such confrontationso at that time.
This was a step back to obtain the resulting forward steps.
David also taught me to make him more adjustable in front of the fences so that we could get ourselves out of trouble.
Under David`s tutelage I started in a number of World Cup qualifiers and was placed in many of them.
The next few seasons bought mixed successes with one of his career highlights of the forth placing in the New Zealand-Australia Volvo World Final in 1998.
During the year 2000 I started taking Mel to John Cottle for lessons.
Where I again went back to basics.
This fashioned him into the consistent performer that many have seen over the recent years, including wins in the Waitemata World cup final and Isola grand prix in successive weeks during the early 2003.
Melanion has been by far the most difficult horse to train, no horse has had more blood, sweat or tears (plenty of those believe me) put into them as Mel has. Despite these difficulties there have been many advantages.
Not only has he given me the opportunity to ride at the top level but he has taught me more about riding and training horses than all the great coaches I been privileged to have.
Colour - Bay
Sex - Gelding
Height - 165 cm
Breed - 7/8`s Thoroughbred
Foaled October 1982
Sire Super Stud, thoroughbred stallion (by Cry Baby II) that stood at the San Mateo Stud (Kelly Park), Wainui, North of Auckland.
Dam Walkabout
