Canadian
Dressage Riders in Germany
by Karen Robinson
Spotlight on Leonie Bramall and Daisy Palmer
Making It on Her
Own: Leonie Bramall in Germany
As the nation that has dominated dressage competition since its birth
early in the last century, Germany is known for exporting trainers,
not importing them; Canadian riders usually travel there to gain knowledge
from the world leaders in the sport, not give it.
When Leonie Bramall
first went to Germany in 1984, her purpose was also to learn, not
to teach. Nineteen years later, she and her partner Volker Dusche
run a training and breeding facility in Northern Germany. After just
seven months in operation at the leased facility, the barn is full
and Bramall has a busy schedule training and showing clients’
horses. Her path from student to mentor in the most exacting of dressage
nations is a story marked by hard work and an unswerving love of the
horse.
From the hinterland
to the heartland
Bramall grew up in the Southlands area of Vancouver, B.C., a horsey
neighbourhood that nourished her childhood fervor for horses. She
competed in three-day events as well as dressage, with dressage eventually
gaining her undivided attention.
In 1981, she was
a member of the gold medal winning team at the North American Young
Riders’ Championships, and, in 1982, a member of the silver medal
team. At just 18 years of age, she moved to Germany for what she thought
would be at most a two-year spell. “I intended to go and train
and find a good young horse and then to stay until the money ran out.”
She had two strokes
of good fortune: she found an exceptional young horse, Gilbona, and
she went to one of Germany’s top trainers, Johann Hinneman, who
was, at that time, the Canadian Team coach. Hinnemann invited the
young Bramall to continue to train with him, and after three years
she obtained a work permit, progressing from working student to teacher
and trainer. With an income, she was able to stay on in Germany.
One of her biggest
challenges, she said, was learning to speak German. “I understood
well within a year, but I was too shy to speak. What got me going
was the kids in the barn asked for help with their horses, so I got
speaking by teaching lessons.” She recalled a funny moment when
Hinnemann walked into the barn and chastised everyone for speaking
English to her all the time. “He came in and said, ‘Stop
speaking English to her, she needs to learn German’. The next
thing he did was turn to me and speak to me in English.”
An Olympic dream
come true
Bramall’s competitive career with Gilbona was everything she
could have hoped for. “When I look back it seems like a dream.
It just doesn’t happen like that – to take one three-year-old
horse and gamble everything on it and to struggle through a difficult
situation. I wasn’t able to pay for my training; I had to work
my butt off from morning to night. I never had a groom – I did
it on my own.” She added that no one trained the horse for her.
Hinnemann helped her a great deal, but she trained her horse to Grand
Prix herself. Gilbona’s debut at that level was also her own
and on German soil – a daunting experience when the likes of
Reiner Klimke were in the class. “It was a shock, but it makes
you strong,” she reflected. After continued success with her
charismatic Oldenburg mare, Bramall was a member of the Canadian team
at the Barcelona and Atlanta Olympics, as well as the World Championships
in 1994. During the same period, Bramall also trained a number of
exceptional young horses, including Inspekteur, Relevant and Rohdiamont.
In 1992, she won the German National Championship for young horses
on Fosbury.
After Gilbona
was retired from competition, Bramall lost her. It was a tragic end
to a 13-year partnership. “I think her death marked a closing
of a period in my life. This horse took me through so many life experiences.
I still miss her. It was a very close bond.” Bramall stopped
riding completely for two years. It was her students who kept her
in the sport during the period that she didn’t ride. “I
did a lot of teaching. My people over there kept me going; they wouldn’t
let me stop, and kept my head above water.”
Back in the saddle
In 2001, a client of Hinnemann’s who had known Bramall for a
number of years invited her to try his six-year-old Hessen stallion
Boticello, who was, at the moment, without a trainer. She decided
perhaps it was time to start riding again and she accepted the offer.
The relationship was an immediate ‘click’, and after only
a short time with the stallion, Bramall rode him to a ninth place
finish at the World Championship for six-year-old horses.
Now eight, Boticello
is winning in the Intermediare I division with scores
consistently at 70%. With the kind of success that Bramall has had
this year with Boticello at the Pan Am Games level, she could have
tried for the Canadian team. “With our own farm now, it’s
difficult to co-ordinate qualifying, and a big issue is financial.
Obviously, to ride for Canada again would be wonderful, but the amount
of money it would cost and the time I would be away from the farm
makes it
impossible at the moment.”She added that having been through
the qualification process before, she knows that there is a considerable
amount of stress on the horse, and that too must be considered. Being
in Germany, she sees the great disparity between the financial support
that German riders get and the lack of same for Canadians. “As
a Canadian you really are on your own.”
Bramall met her
partner Volker Dusche at a stallion approval in 2000. They immediately
found that they had a great deal to talk about and their knowledge
bases complimented one another. Bramall knew what she liked in a riding
horse, and Dusche, who has worked as assistant to the breeding manager
at the German breeding association, knew bloodlines inside and out,
with an especial expertise in mare lines.
In 2001, they
took a job together, moving onto a farm and managing it back to successful
operation. Having discovered that they worked well as a team, Bramall
and Dusche decided to go on their own, finding the farm where they
are currently located in November 2002. Bramall does the training
and Dusche manages the farm and breeding program; six stallions stand
at Gestüt Mühlenort, the farm which is located more or less
equidistant from Hamburg, Bremen and Hannover, in the heart of Hanoverian
breeding country.
A willing mentor
Bramall said that she truly loves to teach. She hopes that in the
future she will have time to give more clinics in Canada. When she
gives clinics, she tends not to ride the horses, “because that’s
not the point. When I give a clinic I have horses yelling to me ‘please
help me to deal with my rider’. Riders are always talking about
the problems they have with their horses, but I see what the horses
are telling me about what the riders are doing to them”.
At her facility
in Germany, Bramall takes in working students and believes that the
most valuable lesson she can teach someone who comes to ride with
her is that it’s the basics, over and over, that are important.
“People want to go and ride a Grand Prix schoolmaster. That’s
nice, but it’s not what helps you as a rider. You have to every
day do the basics and the ‘grind’, and get a feeling for
that. Coming to Germany is an eye opener and you see that not all
the horses in Germany are super horses. They have normal horses too.”
Carving her own
path
The hurdles that face a non-German trainer in Germany can be understood
when viewed in contrast to the popularity of German trainers who come
to North America. Hungry for knowledge from the source, most North
American dressage riders are a receptive audience for a German accent.
For Bramall, there is no such advantage in Germany. “The challenge
is that there are a lot of good riders here. You have to get established
and be at the shows if you’re going to get the horses.”
She added that what drives her is not competing, but the joy of training.
“I’ve learned that just as you are teaching a rider, you
are teaching a horse. You are teaching him to develop over his own
physical boundaries.”
At Hinnemann’s
she learned a valuable lesson. “When I was there, Jo had a lot
of normal horses which he gymnastisized and made into really good
horses. Natural obstacles, like a straight hind leg, should, of course,
be taken into consideration, but there are ways to teach a horse to
go beyond his limitations.” Bramall explained that what makes
a good horse is not necessarily exceptional ability, but that “attitude,
rideability and willingness are more important than natural talent”.
Bramall’s
philosophy comes from experiences gained both at Hinnemann’s
and on her own. “I learned with Jo that horses are not the same.
Each horse is an absolute individual.” She applies this belief
to the training of the horses in her care. Her success with both horses
and riders is, she believes, due to her sympathy and respect for the
horse. “Our horses are horses,” she emphasized. “They
go out and get dirty. We don’t clip out their ears or oil their
faces. So many show horses have a miserable life.”
Humility is another essential element to her approach. “You must
not let your own image of perfection punish the horse because of his
capabilities. Always try to bring a horse to greatness by bringing
him to your level of expectations, but you must be fair.” She
warned riders against “riding with baggage”.
“Don’t
spend your ride mad at your horse. Of course, you will sometimes have
to give him a kick or a smack with the whip, but it must be at the
right moment and within limits and the result from the horse positive.
And then it’s over and done with.”
Instinct and intuition
are also qualities of a good trainer: “listening to the horse,
and knowing when it is the right time to do something”. As an
example, she described an experience she had while showing one of
her horses in an Intermediaire I test. The horse did his tempi changes,
but Bramall sensed that the horse didn’t truly understand what
he was doing. “As I did the line of twos in the test, I felt
something change in the horse. I thought, ‘aha, he’s got
it’.” Bramall came out of the ring and, on impulse, went
back into the warm up ring. “I took him across the diagonal and
he did 15 ones. Normally, you train the one tempis by doing one right-left
and, once the horse understands, then you do a left-right, and you
go from there. Somehow, I just knew that I could do what I did with
that horse at that moment.”
For Bramall, dressage
is where sport and art meet. “What is ballet, but an art that
is also a sport? For me, I ride because it’s art. I go to competitions
because that’s my job. I don’t ride to compete per say;
I ride to get to the soul of the horse.” Her placement of value
on the process rather than the product sets her apart from many trainers.
“Riding is not just a matter of making horses do tricks –
that’s easy. It’s a matter of teaching a horse to go through
his body and to want to show himself.”
Who is Daisy Palmer?
When riders choose to ride in Europe full-time, they often disappear,
at least temporarily, from Canadian radar. Daisy Palmer travelled
to Germany numerous times over the past 10 years, and is now living
there full-time. Based in Verden, she currently has three horses with
her Canadian sponsor Patriot Corporation. Palmer also has a four-year-old
mare by Weltmeyer with her fiancé, Holger Kraul. The horses
live at the farm of Hannes Baumgart, where Palmer trains. She also
travels “at least one to two times a week to train with Wolfram
Wittig, current trainer of Isabel Werth.” The opportunity to
train with masters like Wittig is what draws riders like Palmer and
Bramall (who was with Johann Hinnemann for 15 years) to Germany.
Palmer’s
riding career started with a fifth birthday present: a riding lesson
bought for her by her aunt Sharon. She attributes her love of horses
in part to her grandfather, who had Standardbreds. “Realizing
how expensive a riding career would be, my parents tried other possible
sport interests, such as ballet, swimming, hockey, ringette and tap
dancing. I hung onto playing ringette for a while, but I continued
to badger them about the love I had for a horse!”
It was no passing
fancy. By the time she was 20, she had earned her German bronze and
silver Reit Abzeichen medals and the German Reitwart riding license.
She worked teaching and training in Ontario, both privately and at
Sunnybrook Riding School in Toronto, supplementing her income by
waitressing at a Greek restaurant and bartending in an Aurora bar.
On weekends, she worked for Eva Marie Pracht, in return for which
she had the opportunity to ride Pracht’s Olympic mount Emirage.
“I literally worked seven days a week, but I didn’t care;
I knew one day it would take me somewhere.”
The first FEI level horse to come into Palmer’s life was a mare
called Whitney, purchased from Holga Finken in Germany by Palmer’s
then-sponsor. After a stint in Germany, Palmer and Whitney returned
to Canada, competing and training with Pracht.
In December of
2001, Palmer returned to Germany to ride Whitney with Christilot Boylen
and Udo Lange. Six months later, the horse was sold and Palmer found
herself without a mount, but not for long. Having met her future fiancé
during a horse shopping trip to Verden in the summer of 2001, she
headed north to Verden to make a fresh start. Holger Kraul comes from
a horse breeding family; his father breeds Hanoverians – “thus,
a supply of young potential,” said Palmer.
The four-year-old
mare Wonder Woman 4 was purchased by the couple from his father last
fall. “It’s great to keep the offspring in the family”,
she said. The mare, known as Bella in the stable, continues to thrill
Palmer on a daily basis. “She really gives 110 per cent every
day, and is right smart about it. Many times I get the feeling she
is saying to me, ‘you don’t need to tell me how to do that,
I already know!’”
Palmer has other horses to be excited about too, including Dunensand,
whom she is currently schooling for the 2004 season at Prix St. Georges.
Dunensand is by Diamo and out of a Matcho mare. Palmer credits his
breeder Susan Meeser for choosing a good mix of lineages. “I
really love this horse, he is a perfect fit. Our long-term plan is
to go up the ladder rungs to the top. He’s a keeper.”
Palmer also has
a Westfalian stallion Rasantos (by Rosenkavalier). Trained to Grand
Prix, he is, Palmer hopes, the means for her to get some mileage in
the grand prix ring. She showed him at Prix St. Georges and Intermediaire
I this year, with placings in the top three. “I look forward
to what the future brings,” said Palmer.
