Kelly Layne

The Competitor

Kelly is an International Dressage competitor with 43 CDI starts at Grand Prix in Australia, Japan, Germany, Austria and the United States (2003 – 2015). Kelly represented Australia as a Young Rider in New Zealand and Hong Kong. In 2006, Kelly was on the Australian Team for the World Equestrian Games in Aachen Germany. In 2005, Kelly and her horse Amoucheur held their highest World Ranking of 87th. Currently Kelly is ranked 115th in the world on Udon P out of 775 international riders. She has 2 horses on the Australian Elite squad and has her eyes firmly set on a place on the Australian team for the Olympics in Rio. From 1998 to 2014 Kelly competed in 285 dressage competitions on 16 different horses up to Grand Prix. In 2013, she won the Hermes’ Cup for the Small Tour championship at the Tokyo CDI3*. In 2014, she won the Wellington CDI3* Grand Prix Freestyle on Udon P.

The Consultant

Kelly has been finding horses for her clients in Japan since 2001, ranging from Grand Prix Dressage to Eventing horses – one horse of notable mention is “Gorgeous George” who represented Japan at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Kelly also competes in Japan on many of the horses she has sold which now total over 40 horses in the past 15 years.

History

Kelly is the 39 year old daughter of Helen Anstee, a Grand Prix rider, FEI Judge and breeder of dressage horses. Kelly’s riding career started before she could walk, by the time Kelly was 12 years old she was the Under 12 National Dressage Champion twice on two different horses and at the age of 16 placed 9th in the Open Prix St Georges at the Australian National Dressage Championships on a horse she had trained herself.

Kelly rode her first Grand Prix at age 18 on her mother’s Grand Prix horse Adonis. During these formative years her mother took Kelly to clinics with Hubert Eichinger (of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna), Wolfgang Hotzel, Christopher Bartle, Jenny Loriston- Clark, Rudolph Zeilinger, Rosemary Springer. In Australia, she started training with Swedish trainer Irene Bakels-Noreen and the former German Team Dressage Coach and Olympian Harry Boldt. This was all before meeting her most influential trainer Ulla Salzgeber in 2002.