“Instinctâ€with Deborah Hausman
Translation by Henk Glijn
At the stallion examination she had already a sure plan. Buying a horse for the PAVO Cup. The American rider Deborah Hausman has already trained a number of horses to the Grand Prix. She and her husband Marvin are a partner in the KWPN stallion Nassau. Years ago, he bought the chestnut stallion because his wife Deborah had a feeling about him.
Now the same thing happened with the mare Verona, with whom she reached the PAVO Cup Finals. Deborah explains: I wanted to buy a horse to ride the Pavo Cup with, not to win, just to compete and to gain experience. The reason for this was due to last year’s purchase of Abamba, Samba Hit x Goodtimes, at the Prinsjesdag’s Foal auction, bred by Henk van Enkevoort. “That foal I bought with having the PAVO Cup in mind. Now with this horse (Verona) I just wanted the experience in doing it. So, I was in affect looking for a good horse to compete with. A good friend said to me why don’t you buy something that you can go to the top with later on, and yes that’s what I’ve done.
Verona is a Jazz daughter, and she was bred by G.F. van Lent out of Peggie, by Glennridge. Deborah “Chris van Bruegel took me to see her at Craig Rawlings stable, and she was in fact not much more than green broke. It was love at first sight. Just like with Nassau I right away had a feeling about her. Right away something clicked. I came at the beginning of July, and since that time Deborah and Verona were with Alexandria van der Peijil. She is training us and that works out super. Alex and I have a good feeling with each other, a good understanding. We are just like sisters. What one thinks, the other does. It is very special, also in training philosophy we are on one line. Our biggest dilemma is to train the horse in such a way for the Pavo Cup that it wouldn’t interfere with the future plans of training. The trick was to work from tension to relaxation then into connection. At home that is often going really well, she does some unbelievable things for such a young horse. Today was just her third time at a show. The qualifications were her first and on Tuesday the half-final her second. She was really super! On the question that Deborah is especially in love with chestnut horses she had to laugh very hard. No I don’t look at the color of the horse, a good horse is a good horse. This will be a horse for life!