Sancette Competed by Steffen Peters Sold to Australia’s Mary Hanna

15 years ago StraightArrow Comments Off on Sancette Competed by Steffen Peters Sold to Australia’s Mary Hanna
Sancette ridden by Steffen Peters
Sancette ridden by Steffen Peters

SAN DIEGO, California, May. 13–Sancette, a nine-year old-Sandro Hit gelding competed by Steffen Peters has been sold to Mary Hanna, a three-time Olympian for Australia, and gives her the opportunity to aim for another Olympics, in London in 2012.

Mary has been in California working with Steffen–she described him as a “wonderful trainer” and “fantastic” to work with–and will remain here for another two weeks learning as much as she can about Sancette.

Sancette has been owned by Gwen Blake of Auburn, Washington, who competed the 16.3-hand (170cm) Hanoverian bay gelding at the U.S. third level through to Prix St. Georges in 2008.

Steffen of San Diego, California, took over the ride in 2009 initially competing at small tour, receiving scores above 70 per cent, and recently moved him up to Grand Prix.

Mary Hanna, 55, of Bellarine, Victoria, has enjoyed great success with many of the horses she has trained and ridden. She represented Australia at Atlanta on Mosaic in 1996, Sydney in 2000 on Limbo and again on Limbo at Athens in 2004. She also rode at three World Equestrian Games, The Hague in 1994, Rome in 1998 and Jerez, Spain in 2002, and has been the Australian National Grand Prix Champion six times.

She told dressage-news.com that she found herself with no Grand Prix horses but was enjoying success with the seven-year-old Sandro Hit stallion, Shiraz Black, so she felt comfortable with Sancette’s bloodlines.

“Sancette is not a horse I bought for the WEG,” she said of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games in Kentucky beginning late September. Her immediate plans after working with Steffen for the next couple of weeks are to ship the horse to Australia to develop their partnership.

Sancette fit well with her program and could be her prospect for the London Olympics in 2012, as she did not want to push Shiraz Black before he was ready.

Steffen’s style of riding and training were what convinced her to buy Sancette, though she said she appreciated Gwen Blake’s success in showing him before Steffen got the ride as it is not always easy to take on a horse that has been with a single rider.