BY SALLY REID
PHOTOGRAPHY: CORNEGE PHOTOGRAPHY
LT Holst Freda (Colman - LT Holst Andrea x Casall), New Zealand’s current Horse of the Year and leader of the 2025-2026 ESNZ Premier League series, has won the FEI NZL World Cup series for the second year in a row.
Freda is a beautiful grey Holsteiner from Stamm 2067 – a real eye-catcher – who was bred by Ewen Mackintosh, founder of LT Holst Sport Horses. She is owned by her rider (and sole groom) Julie Davey. Julie has had the mare since she was four and has brought her carefully through every step of her brilliant career. The pair are now in the USA, where they will contest the Final. “We are quite the team,” says Julie. “It means a lot to win this again – almost as much as the first time. It is hard to win anything two years in a row.”
Julie describes the mare as ‘very careful’ and this has been obvious since her early appearances in the ring. She was a real star as a four-year-old: the only horse of her age to manage three days of jumping without a single fault, winning the National four-year-old championship and the style prize. She won the five-year-old championship in 2019, finished fourth in her six-year-old championship the following year, and the was the National seven-year-old champion in 2021, when once again she was the only horse to finish the three-day show with no faults.
Julie and Freda finished this season’s FEI NZL World Cup series on 87 points, well ahead of arch-rival Sophie Scott (78.2 points), who actually won the final leg at Takapoto riding Normandy GHP (Nabab de Rêve - Sundance JP/GHP x Stolzenberg). This very impressive big chestnut arrived in Australia in utero with his dam Sundance PJ/GHP.
The mare was bred by Pferdezucht Dr. Bonny Jacobs in Bierbergen, Germany and bought as a four-year-old by Olivia Hamood of Glen Haven Park in Queensland. Sundance GHP (Stolzenberg x Escudo I x Werther) scored 10 for jumping ability at her mare performance test in Germany. She is from the Hanoverian Stamm 2192107, Schridde 381, and has the blood of Stakkato on her sire’s side.
Normandy GHP won the Tamworth leg of the Australian World Cup series in September with Sophie Scott, and had two wins in the NZL series – both at Takapoto. And here’s a coincidence: the horse who won the previous year’s Tamworth leg of the Australian Series was none other than LT Holst Freda.
Normandy GHP is owned by the Normandy Syndicate, and first competed in New Zealand with Oliver Edgecombe, joining Sophie Scott’s team in February 2024. He has huge presence in the ring, extraordinary scope over the fences, and is well on the way to stardom.
Although he is now a gelding, Normandy GHP was kept entire for his earlier years and has young progeny in Australia...
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