Dressage-News

June 23, 2021

Canada’s Olympic team of Brittany Fraser-Beaulieu on All In, Lindsay Kellock on Sebastien and Chris von Martels on Eclips  was announced by Equestrian Canada Wednesday. Naïma Moreira Laliberté on Statesman and Jill Irving on Arthur were named reserves.

The team made up of Olympic rookies but all medalists at continental championships, is:

* Brittany Fraser-Beaulieu, 32, and All In, 16-year-old KWPN gelding, owned by Brittany and her husband, Marc-Andre Beaulieu

* Lindsay Kellock, 31, and Sebastien, 15-year-old Rhinelander gelding, owned by Enterprise Farm Equestrian, LLC and Lindsay

* Chris von Martels, 38, and Eclips, 12-year-old KWPN gelding, owned by Barbara Soederhuizen and Chris

Reserve:

Naïma Moreira Laliberté, 24, and Statesman, 14-year-old Hanoverian gelding, owned by KML, Inc.

Jill Irving, 58, and Arthur, 16-year-old KWPN gelding, owned by Windhaven Farm.

Ashley Holzer, a four-time Olympian for Canadian including team bronze at the 1988 Seoul Games but who now rides for the United States, has been the long-term personal coach of all five riders.

Brittany Fraser-Beaulieu has been partnered with All In for most of the horse’s life, traveling to Florida together more than a decade ago to compete in national first level classes. By 2013, the pair were ready for international Small Tour, logging victories at U.S. East Coast events.

With the Pan American Games staged in Toronto in 2015 on it’s four-year cycle, Brittany and All In were ready, posting five straight CDI
victories right before the championships. In the Pan Am mixed Small Tour/Big Tour competition, the pair captured the Prix St. Georges with a personal best score to help Canada to team silver against an American squad that included Laura Graves on Verdades and Steffen Peters on Legolas.

Brittany and All In moved up to Grand Prix immediately after the Pan Ams. In 2017, she took All In to compete in Europe, at Fritzens in the Austrian Alps and the premier World Equestrian Festival in Aachen, Germany.

At the 2018 World Equestrian Games in Tryon, the duo were highest placed on Canada’s team. A highlight of 2019 was for the pair to sweep the top rated CDI5* at the highly competitive Global Dressage Festival in Wellington. Like the rest of the sports world, the focus in 2020 was on the Tokyo Olympics. But coronavirus led to postponement for a year. So they returned to Florida to hold on to their position as Canada’s top ranked combination and a place on the Olympic team.

Lindsay Kellock, like all her team mates, will be competing at an Olympics for the first time though the 31-year-old rider has been to two Games, as a groom with Jacqueline Brooks and Gran Gesto in 2008 and with Ashley Holzer and Breaking Dawn in 2012.

Lindsay was on Canada’s 2019 Pan American Games gold medal team with Floratina.

She began dressage early in her life at stables in Toronto which were managed by her mother, Jennifer,  aunt, Sue Bundy, alongside her godmother and four-time Canadian Olympian, Ashley Holzer. Lindsay trained with seven-time Canadian Olympian Christilot Boylen, and then worked as assistant trainer and barn manager for Ashley Holzer for seven years.

Her Canadian dressage team debut was at the age of 22, at the 2013 CDIO3* Nations Cup in Wellington, Florida. She competed Floratina on Canada’s silver medal team at the Wellington Nations Cup in 2019.

Chris von Martels has competed more than three dozen different horses at U.S. national and international competitions in the past two decades, some to compete at the top North American shows, others passing through his successful horse sales stables.

Most successful was Zilverstar, a KWPN gelding that he bought as a six-year-old in 2009. Four years later, Chris and Zilverstar began a Small Tour partnership that was successful on both sides of the Atlantic. In 2015, the pair were logging victories at the competitive Global Dressage Festival in Wellington, Florida on their way to earning a place in Canada’s team at the Pan American Games at home in Toronto alongside Brittany Fraser on All In. Canada claimed team silver and Chris and Zilverstar went on to take the bronze by winning the Intermediate Freestyle and sharing the medals podium with American Grand Prix competitors Steffen Peters who won gold on Legolas and Laura Graves on Verdades with silver.

The partnership with Eclips, a KWPN gelding he owns with Barbara Soederhuizen of the Netherlands, began in 2019. Postponement of the Olympics for a year to 2021 enabled the pair to develop with improving scores to become contenders for Canada’s team at Tokyo.

Naïma Moreira Laliberté first rode for Canada at the North American Junior and Young Rider Championships in 2012, where she and Tolando led Team Quebec to capture gold, and returned with Wind Breaker in 2013 to claim another team gold and earn individual silver. As a Young Rider, Naïma rode Nao Guimeraie to team silver in 2014 and wrapped up her North American Youth Championship experience on Belafonte taking individual gold and bronze medals.

Naïma competed Statesman on both sides of the Atlantic before being selected for the team that captured gold at the 2019 Pan Ams.

Jill Irving has gone from a national-level hunter/jumper competitor to one of Canada’s top dressage talents. She has more than proved herself as a strong, capable and exciting athlete, recording numerous top-10 finishes since her FEI debut in 2013.

In addition to top-three placings at premier North American  competitions, she rode Degas on the 2019 Pan Am gold medal team.

She debuted Arthur in 2017, with top three placings at Achleiten CDI4* in the Austrian Alps and was on the 2019 Nations Cup team that captured silver .