Winter Dressage Championships: ‘I thought he was dull as a four-year-old – but luckily I failed to sell him’

Becky Moody and the home-bred Dante Weltino x Jazz son Jagerbomb ran away with the Magic prix st georges (PSG) title on day one of the NAF Five Star Winter Dressage Championships. The pair posted 76.08% from first draw to win by almost 4% from second-placed Lisa Hopkins and Liss Le Belle.

“First is never your favourite place to go, but you just have to seize it and go for it. It was a nice test,” said Becky, who will ride him in the inter I later this week at the Winter Dressage Championships, and hopes to bring him out at inter II this summer.

Jagerbomb was the seven-year-old national champion at the national championships in September 2021, as well as reserve champion at PSG to Charlotte Dujardin and Imhotep. Now eight, Jagerbomb is strengthening up, and it is showing in the quality of his work.

“He is a very trainable, level-headed horse,” said Becky, who nearly sold him as a four-year-old because he seemed “lazy and dull”.

“Luckily I failed to sell him,” she laughed. “He doesn’t have exceptional movement but he does have a good brain and good enough movement that I can train him to be exceptional.

“He’s a big horse and still only eight, so it is still a case of getting him stronger. But things like the canter pirouettes are better than last season, they require more sit and engagement and he has the strength to do them now.

Winter Dressage Championships: ‘He’ll be a top grand prix horse one day’

Jezz Palmer and Emily Ivans’ Ketcher B topped the Spiller medium freestyle gold with 74.89%, on Jezz’s third trip into the arena for the class.

“I had three rides: the first one was hot, the second one blew up and the third one finally worked,” laughed Jezz, who also finished third on Tiny Dancer.

“Ketcher B was brilliant, and I couldn’t ask much more of him. He is a covering stallion but he’s so good and he knows when he is at a show and when he is covering,” he said of the seven-year-old Negro stallion, who has 15 foals on the ground from last year.

“He’s a Negro and so he has all his power behind and he has to learn to come up in the shoulder. Matt Frost has been helping me and it is paying off.

“The simple changes never used to be very good, so we started doing working pirouettes and that has helped the simple changes. sometimes moving on [in your training] and then coming back works brilliantly.

“The plan is to train him up to grand prix – he’ll be a top grand prix horse one day.”

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