E
lyse Thompson is one of Victoria’s most widely travelled and hardest working pleasure Standardbred competitors. Her dedication and commitment over the past 12 months was richly rewarded when she received the Standardbred Horse Association of Australia Inc.’s 2013-14 National High Point Competition – National Performance Horse (Senior Section) Sash. The award acknowledges Elyse’s outstanding achievements with Liberty Valence NZ (aka Nippa), a striking 12YO black gelding by Badlands Hanover whose brief racing career produced just one win from 11 starts. Elyse has owned Nippa for the past two years and together they have become a dominant force on the Victorian show circuit. His National Award came in just his second competition season under saddle which is a remarkable result.
National Showing Award for Liberty Valence NZ & Elyse Thompson Liberty Valence was bred in New Zealand and qualified to race under the name Top Chance before being exported to Australia as a two-year-old in March, 2004. He was trained by Don Lock at Gisborne in Victoria and soon became a favourite of Erin White, who assisted at the racing stables. “He was taken along fairly slowly as far as his racing career went, because he was always big and gangly,” Erin recalled. “He showed a lot of promise but couldn’t keep his legs out of the way of each other and had a rather immature 16.2hh stature.” Liberty Valence made his racing debut as an early four-year-old, but it proved to be a tragic outcome – he fractured the P1/P2 in his left fore leg and underwent surgery to insert two metal plates. Fortunately with box rest, and appropriate rehabilitation, he made a complete recovery, returning to the racetrack just one day short of a year after the accident. Fast forward six days, and he recorded his only career win in a C0 class event at Bendigo; four months later, Liberty Valence was officially retired, a lack of co-ordination and ill-gait making him unviable as an ongoing racing proposition. “I had staked a claim for him when he finished racing from the time he was a two-year-old,” Erin admitted.