The young horse finals at the National Dressage Championships are always something of a window into the future of the sport, and one young partnership made quite the splash as they claimed the 2024 KBIS six-year-old title.
Alicia Lee and Della Ballerina squeaked into Sunday’s final after finishing fourth in Saturday’s qualifier, on the same score as Beth Bainbridge and WHD Elton, but with a slightly higher way of going mark that propelled them ahead and into the deciding round. And there they thoroughly impressed judges Spencer Wilton, Christine Prip and ride judge Alex Harrison-West to come out on top.
“I am so excited to do that – I was not expecting to win,” said a quite overcome Alicia. “I always knew she was a quality horse, and I really think she’s a horse for the future, but you never know what the judges are going to think. So to have the judges agree that she’s special and going in the right direction is really satisfying.”
The title is even more rewarding for 25-year-old Alicia, who bought the Destacado x Weltmeyer daughter as a foal and has produced her all the way, saying that she’s a horse “who makes my life easy”.
“When you buy a foal you never really know exactly what you’re getting, but I really did think she was special. She has really good paces and great adjustability in all three of them. She can half halt and collect well and she really offers the collection as well as extension – she feels like a mini grand prix horse in the making.
“I’ve owned a few foals from the same dam as her and loved their characters and how sweet they were, so I liked her too. Unlike most foals, when I bought her she looked exactly as she does now, just a mini version – she already had this lovely neck and strong back. She never went through an ugly duckling phase – she started off looking like the finished article.”
Grand prix is certainly Alicia’s goal for this special mare, but right now, she is just enjoying the journey and the rewards that come with breeding and producing young horses.
“I have quite a few young horses that I’ve either bred myself or bought as foals,” she says. “I find it a really enjoyable process starting them from the very beginning and creating my own horse, effectively. I’m not in a position to buy a horse that’s already trained but I love the process of making them and I love breeding and bloodlines. I’m a big fan of German bloodlines especially, and I always try to breed from chosen lines, and where I’ve looked at the sire or dam and thought, ‘I want to ride that’.”
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