An Eventful Life filmed the cross country at
Equestriad International 2020 - order or view videos here
“They’re both lovely horses, very trainable and they just keep getting better” Christine Bates is enjoying her rides on Tim Boland’s imported horses Schatzi and Cooley Gangster, who are both on the market but currently being competed and trained by Christine
“Tim and I have talked about doing this for a while but the last two winters I’ve been overseas, so we’ve just got around to doing it this year. In July he sent me two horses – Schatzi and Cooley Gangster – and another one has just arrived today”
Australian eventing rider Christine Bates, who represented Australia as part of the Nations Cup team at Aachen in 2018 and spent most of 2019 ‘backpacking with my horses’ around the UK to fulfil a long-held dream is now fulfilling another dream, riding imported horses owned by fellow eventing rider Tim Boland who, luckily ‘has too many good horses’
“They’re much nicer horses than those I’ve had to bring along in the past” says Christine “It is really enjoyable to be riding such quality horses for an owner”
After some small hit-outs during an unsettled second half of the season, Christine took the two horses to Equestriad where they both won an EvA95 class and Schatzi followed up her win at Canberra
The Hanoverian eight-year-old mare Schatzi was brought as a show jumper from Germany by Tim Boland in early 2018 and she spent her first year in Australia in the show jumping arena with Tom McDermott, jumping up to 1.45m, while Cooley Gangster, a seven-year-old Irish Sport Horse, was imported from Ireland in late 2019
Schatzi led the field in the CCN1* at Quirindi last weekend with a great dressage score of 18.7 but Christine opted not to run on cross country. Now both horses will head to Albury and Wallaby Hill with the hope that they will move up to 2* at the start of next season and finish the year at 3* level – definitely ones to keep an eye on in 2021 ….
