Australian rider Samantha Cesnik is making her Mars Badminton Horse Trials debut on Graftango, a 14-year-old mare she acquired from the breeder Laura Hedberg five years ago after failing to sell.
“Being a breeder you don’t pick what you breed and they never really got on,” said Samantha, who is based at Chedington Equestrian in Dorset and trains with Sam Griffiths and Nicola Wilson.
“She’s a tricky mare sometimes — she chooses her people — and after nine months of being for sale her breeder rang and said, ‘look can you just you just come and ride this horse’ and I did.
“I thought I could really get on with this. I feel like she chose me. Then we had Covid and that gave us a chance to get organised.
“She only did her first four-star two-and-a-half years ago, so she’s pretty green. She’s 14 but very low mileage and a real warrior.”
Samantha will fly home to Australia next week in order to campaign the string of horses with a run at the Melbourne International Horse Trials on the cards in June.
“I’m going to try and have one foot in each country for a while and clock up some frequent flyers,” she said.
Graftango will remain in the UK and be aimed at Burghley.
‘She’s never seen mud’
Samantha and Graftango arrived in Europe in October last year in order to contest the French CCI5*, Pau.
“She only had 10 days between getting off the plane and trotting up, so Pau was like a big ask,” said Samantha. “Then it rained. She’s never seen mud and it was proper mud, so that was all a baptism of water I suppose, rather than fire.”
The mare spent the winter with the rider’s trainer Briana Burgess while Samantha returned to her yard in the southern Australian state of Victoria, near Melbourne.
“She had this beautiful French winter which was perfect for her, [because it’s] very similar to our winter, and I didn’t bring her [to the UK] until February.
“Briana was able to bring her back into work for me and get her ticking,” said Samantha.
Samantha added that the warm weather in the build up to Badminton and the top-of-the-going for tomorrow’s cross-country phase will really suit the mare.
Grooming background
Samantha is a former groom and groomed for Brazil’s Carlos Parro at the 2006 World Equestrian Games in Aachen.
“I shouldn’t tell you guys this, but I do have a quiet little girl in me saying that if I somehow made the [World Championships] team next year, it would be 20 years since I groomed at Aachen.”
Samantha has also competed in dressage in the past.
it just means when you get to this level, I knew exactly what I was bringing this horse here to deal with and there’s probably other horses I’ve thought yeah let’s put this on an aeroplane. This one as I say she’s a warrior you know like she’s a real battler and I knew that she would come here and try hard to grow so I hope she does that for me this week.
Samantha has also competed in dressage in the past.
“Twenty years ago I came to Europe and trained at PSI in Germany. I did a lot of dressage because I was really bad at it — and I’ve still got a way to go.
“I still run some dressage horses at home but it’s hard to have one foot in each camp. I’d like to come back to the dressage when I’m getting older. It’s my semi-retirement plan when I don’t want to keep jumping big obstacles.”
Main image by Tim Wilkinson
