Former local horse reigns in ring

A remarkable upset caused by Australian Joann Formosa in the Paralympics dressage ring was achieved on the back of former Wanganui Hanoverian stallion Worldwide PB.

Formosa, riding in her first Paralympics, is in the second-to-top 1B division, and has no power in her arms or legs and controls the horse's movements with a whip.

She won gold in Grade IB ahead of Great Britain's Lee Pearson, Paralympic champion since 2000, and was to try again overnight in the musical freestyle event in London.

Worldwide PB was bred in Germany and imported in 1998 to Wanganui's Vollrath Stud by studmaster Berny Maubach and sold to Australia in 2006. He was onsold to Formosa this year - she's only had him seven months.

A very proud Maubach said yesterday that the win was a tribute to the horse's temperament.

"When we got the horse he was green, and my wife Jutta Rosenblatt made him what he is. The horse has been totally retrained to do its movements at the touch of a whip. For a paraplegic it's the temperament of the horse that counts."

The horse is still a stallion.

He was used extensively as a stallion at Vollrath, and had an impressive career with Rosenblatt. They won the NZ National Novice Championship and Medium Horse of the Year title, and competed to the level of Prix St George, before being sold Australian rider Claire Seidl-Wickens in 2006.

Formosa said of Worldwide: "He's a stallion which is very unusual for Para-Equestrian sport, but he doesn't behave like one - even around mares. He's a real sweetie."