Libby Anderson, who now runs Teamwork Dressage in America with her daughter, was born and brought up in Australia. She started her equine career jumping and eventing, and then went to a show jumping clinic run by Franz Mairinger, then the Australian coach for show jumping, cross country and dressage and formerly Chief First Rider with the Spanish Riding School in VIenna. It was a pivotal moment: she saw the possibilities of dressage, although she continued to jump until a fall when she was three months pregnant.
She competed internationally at dressage, and judged to International FEI level until 2004. She continues to train and teach at Teamwork Dressage. She has written many scientific articles on equine nutrition, as well as writing on horse care. Her two pony books are aimed at entirely different age groups: A New Horse for Marny is aimed at teenagers, and The Gundaroo Pony at younger readers. A New Horse for Marny is well worth seeking out in its American printing. It has a beautiful cover illustration, and that rarest of the rare things in the modern day horse book, has internal illustrations as well.
Thanks to Jill Albrecht for pointing me in the right direction in this section.
Finding the books: The Gundaroo Pony is reasonably easy to find. A New Horse for Marny is much trickier to find, but not impossible.
Sources and Links:
Teamwork Dressage: run by Libby Anderson and her daughter. A slightly
confusing site: it switches from third person to first with alarming frequency.
More
on Franz Mairinger
A New Horse for Marny
Rigbey Limited, Adelaide,1977, illus Nita McAuley. 199 pp
Half
Halt Press, USA, paperback, 1994 (right). Illustrations Heather St Clair Davis, 190
pp.
Marny is 16 when tragedy strikes and she loses her pony, but then a new horse comes
into her
life. Casanova is no ordinary horse: he hates mankind, and has been called
a killer.
The Gundaroo Pony
Australian National University Press, 1979, illus Ronald Revitt
Dianne lives with her parents in Gundaroo. One Christmas she is given a little grey
pony, which Dianne calls
No Name. She leanrs to ride him, and then takes part in
her school historical picnic with her pony, who gets
a new name out of the event.
Libby Anderson
Bibliography -
