BY SALLY REID
PHOTOGRAPHY: OWNERS’ ARCHIVES
For many years now, the ESNZ’s season-long series for young jumping horses has proved a sure-fire indicator of future Grand Prix talent and successful bloodlines and sires.
Seven-year-old series double for Demietta
The talented New Zealand Warmblood Demietta (Daminos - Octavia Queen x Don Quattro) has backed up her win in last year’s six-year-old series by taking this year’s seven-year-old title with a score of 119, well clear of her opponents.
She has an outstanding young rider, Johanna Wylaars, who also won last year’s seven-year-old title riding AH California Dreaming (Euro Sport Centavos), as well as the 2025 six-year-old age-group with Demietta. And, despite being bred by a genuine amateur, the mare has impressive performance bloodlines, particularly on her sire’s side.
According to Johanna; “Demi has jumped very consistently all season. She also jumped in a few Young Riders and Horse Mini Prix and we’re super-excited to see what next season has in store for her. I’m very proud of my wee girl.”
Demietta is owned by Jo’s mother Pip Wylaars, and was bred (see below) in Hawke’s Bay by the self-professed ‘not a horse person’, Denise Sutherland for her daughters Lily and Nina Sutherland, both of whom definitely are horse people.
‘Not much to tell…’
“I'm afraid there is not much to tell re her breeding,” says Denise. “I was part of a syndicate at that time that owned Daminos. I am not a breeder; I just bred a couple of horses from the stallions in the syndicate for my daughters, who were young teens then. I am not a horse person at all”. In fact, Denise has a rather nice confession to make: “Really,” she adds, “it was my eldest daughter Lily who bred her; it was just my name on the papers because of Lily’s age.
“We bought Demietta’s dam Octavia as a four-year-old from Mark Kinaston-Smith for Lily to break in and produce as a showjumper, but we first put her into foal. Lily did start her and ride her in some shows afterwards, then had a change in direction and sold her to a rider in Hawke’s Bay, who subsequently sold her to the South Island.” (Lily’s change of direction took her very successfully into the racing world. She has won the country’s Leading Apprentice Jockey award two years in a row.)
Octavia Queen (Dicavalli Don Quattro - CTS Clockwork Orange x Kings Ransom IRD) was bred by Mark Kinaston-Smith who also trains horses, many of which are used in film work. He was the ‘equine make-up artist’ on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Octavia Queen’s dam CTS Clockwork Orange (Kings Ransom ISH, dam and breeder unrecorded), competed with eventing rider Carolyn Jolley of Blackhawk Farm sport horse stud...
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