Hazel Shannon and WillingaPark Clifford competing at the Nations Cup in Haras du Pin.

© Les Garennes

Another World Championship horse for Willinga Park

By EQ Life & Roger Fitzhardinge

Yesterday’s announcement of the Australian eventing team for the FEI World Championships saw a second Willinga Park-owned horse make a team this year.

Hazel Shannon and WillingaPark Clifford, owned by Terry and Ginette Snow, have been named alongside Shenae Lowings and Bold Venture, Shane Rose and Virgil, Andrew Hoy and Vassily de Lassos, and Kevin McNab with either Scuderia 1918 Don Quidam or Willunga.

At or before the First Horse Inspection at Pratoni, the National Eventing Selection Panel, in consultation with the Chef d’Equipe, will select four team combinations and one individual combination from this squad of five. Either way, Hazel and Clifford will be saddling up to compete.

The announcement follows WillingaPark Sky Diamond’s performance for Australia on the dressage team at the World Championships in Herning, with Jayden Brown in the saddle. It must be quite a feat to get one horse onto the dressage team for Australia, let alone another on the eventing team!

Jayden Brown and WillingaPark Sky Diamond.

© Roger Fitzhardinge

Terry Snow is an exceedingly passionate man with a vision to get horses to international level. He’s spent a lot of time and effort producing a facility at Willinga Park that is international beyond imagination.

Sky Diamond was purchased at a very baby level of dressage, Novice/Elementary, and has been produced at Willinga Park with several riders through to Grand Prix. Jayden Brown, now riding for Willinga Park – and currently based in England with six of their horses – put the icing on the cake through lots of hard work and dedication, producing this horse to Grand Prix. With one extra good last-chance performance at Hartpury, he produced a great score, made the team, and then rode exceptionally well at the World Championships. For a young horse that has only done five Grand Prix tests, it was an exceptional percentage and placing.

Willinga Park now has another horse on an Australian team in Clifford. Hazel first met the off-the-track Thoroughbred, by Passing Shot, when he was in a paddock next to Heath and Rozzie Ryan’s property in Heatherbrae. Neighbour Wendy Ward owned him; her sister had bred and raced him, but he was too slow. And so Wendy handed him over to Hazel to ride and train – and an amazing partnership ensued.

The pair rose up the grades, debuting at FEI level in 2012 and by 2014 they had reached four-star level (old three-star). Of course, no story is without its ups and downs – a nasty cross country fall in 2014 left Hazel with a broken pelvis, while Clifford was thankfully unharmed. Not to be deterred, by the end of 2016 the pair had won their first of three five-star classes at the Australian International Three-Day Event in Adelaide. However, the next two wins very nearly didn’t happen.

In 2017, Clifford was to put on the market due to financial difficulties. With Hazel unable to purchase him herself, she and Heath made a last-ditch attempt to keep the partnership together by reaching out to Terry Snow. To cut a long story short, Terry saved the day and WillingaPark Clifford went on to win the five-star at Adelaide with Hazel in 2018 and 2019. They became the first combination to achieve this feat at Adelaide, and one of only five in the world to win the same five-star event three times.

To date, luck overseas has largely eluded the talented duo – something that has really just come down to bad luck, as does happen with horses. However, a great performance at the recent Nations Cup at Haras du Pin, where Hazel and Clifford were the highest placed on the Australian team, showed just what they are capable of.

Having an Aussie Thoroughbred on the team is quite an incredible thing – and something that may never have happened if Terry Snow didn’t recognise their talent and step in to keep the partnership together five years ago. It’s a real credit to his vision of promoting Australian horses on the world stage.

Heath Ryan of course has always been a big believer in what Hazel and WillingaPark Clifford are capable of and has backed them from the very beginning. “(Clifford) has a brilliant temperament and is super-dooper reliable. Over jumps he looks better when they get bigger because he always tries 110%. In the trying department, he is a freak,” Heath once said.

It’s been somewhat a long time coming for Hazel. Despite only being 30 years of age herself, she and Clifford, 17, have had a long and very consistent career – competing at FEI level now for a decade. It’s quite incredible what they have achieved, and it goes to show… never stop trying!

 

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