www.braveart.com.au

 

 

Matthew is proudly
sponsored by...

 


www.rideinstyle.com.au

 


www.euro-star.de

matthew dowsley dressage rider stable cinderella

DOB: 6 Feb 1965
Height: 1.89m
Occupation: Full time trainer and rider.
Started Riding: At the age of five at his parents riding school at Meadlow Bath near the Blue Mountains in NSW.
Coach: Matthew trains with both Bimbo Peilicke and Ulla Salzgeber. On his current trip to Germany, Matthew is training with Jürgen Koschel.
Training Regime: Matthew trains horses every morning and gives lessons in the afternoons. Clinics are available in NSW, VIC and QLD with prior arrangement.
Idol: Isabell Werth.
Interests: Socialising with friends
...whenever there is time!
Training Methods: Matthew believes in bringing horses along slowly and carefully with an emphasis on classical correctness.


Photo Courtesy of Roger Fitzharding

cinderella

What a fairytale this has been to date. Cinderella was purchased by Mrs. Claudia Harper in April of 2000 from the Hannoverian Elite Auction in Verden - Germany. She arrived some months later in our barn here in Sydney. The mare was purchased for Claudia to ride with the help from me. Unfortunately she turned out to be quite a handful at that stage of her career and Claudia decided it best for me to carry on with her training and to compete with her. Lucky for us, she has probably turned out to be the most successful horse I have ever had to train and compete on. I was fortunate enough to be able to take both of Claudia's horses to 'Bimbo Peilicke' a German Master who was brought out to Australia by Glennis Barrey on a regular basis and with the help of Glennis trained us from 2000 to the beginning of 2006.
As a 5 year old (remembering that as of August 1 of every year this is when we in the southern hemisphere have the horses birthday) December 2000, she became the 5 year old Champion at 'Dressage With the Stars' held in Melbourne.

 


Photo Courtesy of Roger Fitzharding

The following year she was runner up to another horse I trained for Claudia, 'Astonish', a super brown gelding by (frozen semen) Argentinus, bred by Belcam Stud. Probably one of the nicest horses I have ever had anything to do with. Nothing was too much trouble for him and he just was always so keen to please. Unfortunately within the next 12 months we had serious soundness problems with him due to a hind suspensery ligament and was in and out of work for some years. So, to date I think Cinderella had been floating around winning National Championships at Novice and Elementary levels. I did leave her down in the lower levels longer as she was quite a handful to take anywhere. Sometimes I would take her to a competition and basically it would look like she was not trained at all!! Purely because there would be too many distractions or just on that day it was just all too hard for her. After Astonishs' exit from the competition arena it was time for Cinderella to do something serious - she was thrown into the deep end having to compete at 'the small tour' (Prix ST Georges/Intermediare 1 level). This at times became down right dangerous. At one competion, the bell was signalled from the chief judge at 'C', which indicated to the princess to go into a major spin with copious airs above the ground which finished with a back flip with her on top of me on the ground. This was not good. We both got up I mounted and proceeded to ride a rather cautious test. Luckily from that day things did get better I think before she went to the big tour she did win a state championship at Intermediare 1 level. In 2005 in June or July she made her debut at Grand Prix level at Clarendon NSW winniing with around 64%. Later on in October we were 3rd at National Championships, then competed at Equitana, held in Melbourne a few weeks later and won both the Grand Prix and Grand Prix Kur. Then went on to the Pacific League final held in conjunction with Dressage with the STars and was 3rd. At the time Ulla Salzgeber was giving regular clinics here in Australia organised by the EFA and Debbie McNicoll. Between Ulla, Claudia and myself we had come to the conclusion that if we were serious about competing at the 2006 WEG in Aachen that we needed to get Cinderella to Europe to get some serious competitions under her belt. So, on the 7th March 2006 we boarded a flight from Sydney to Amsterdam with many stops with our final destination being 'Bad Worishofen' which is south west of Munich, basically at the bottom of Germany which took another 9 hours drive from Amsterdam. A 50 hour trip from stable to stable.. We trained daily with Ulla upto and including the WEG on a daily basis which I felt to be the best thing I have ever done, career wise. To be getting that sort of help on a daily basis was just amazing and to feel the improvement was super!!
So directly after Aachen, Cinderella was put on a truck with other WEG horses and sent to England for quarantine to come back to Sydney. Well, she won the 2006 Pacific League final which gives us the right to compete at the World Cup final to be held in Las Vegas April of 2007. So, to date we are booked on a plane leaving Sydney, February 13 for Amsterdam, again!!

 

 

ARGENTILLE GULLIT

Purchased by Mr Brian Silvia of Val D'Argent Warmblood Stud as a 3 year old colt from The Netherlands. Gullit arrived in Australia in January of 1992 as a 4 year old Stallion. He was produced here by me with the help of Clemens & Judy Dierks. He was a very successful horse winning State/and or National Championships right through from Novice to Grand Prix level. Whilst competing at Prix St Georges level he did win 2 consecutive Samsung Cup awards. In 1997 we were selected to train and compete in Europe for approximately 3 months. It was probably the highlight of my career to date as we were based with the late Herbert Rehbein for the first part of the tour. It was really an eye opening experience for me, seeing horses such as 'Donnerhall & Walk On Top' being trained daily, just seeing exactly how much is asked of these horses and how finally tuned to their riders they become. In 1998 we were selected to tour again Germany with our final selection for the World Equestrian Games in Rome. The selection event was held at 'Donnereschingen CDI', but unfortunately for us it was not to be. So we ended our tour as the reserve combination for the 1998 WEG team.
Prior to the WEG Gullit was sent back to Germany to be prepared for sale. He was sold to a client of Carl Hester's and represented Great Britain at the Sydney 2000 Olympics.

 

 

 


Photo Courtesy of Roger Fitzharding