Vittoria Panizzon and DHI Jackpot. Photo by Tilly Berendt.
Vittoria Panizzon has ridden at nine senior championships for Italy, including three Olympic Games, but at the beginning of this season it seemed unlikely that she would make it to a 10th. She was entering the second year of a four-year suspension for a missed human dope test that seemed deeply unfair – Vittoria and the representative from Italy’s national anti-doping association (NADO) had failed to find each other at 5am on a very rural property that was difficult to access, with poor phone signal – and Vittoria’s attempts to get her ban lifted were frustrating, unsupported and very expensive.
However, the Court for Arbitration for Sport (CAS) finally annulled the ban at the end of April, and she had to put her foot down hard on the throttle to regain her place on the Italian team.
DHI Jackpot, the attractive grey, now 11, whom Vittoria turned to crowdfunding in the winter of 2022 to secure with Paris in mind, had had a couple of national runs with Susie Berry to make sure he was ready to go if Vittoria’s CAS appeal was successful.
“I’m very grateful to Susie – I’d worked him through the winter, but it was hugely helpful that she had him in work and ready to go; we didn’t know what the outcome would be, or how long it would take,” Vittoria said. “And she hadn’t changed my ‘buttons’, which was amazing because that’s a very stressful part of swapping horses and riders around at that level. I was able to hop back on and he went beautifully straight away.”
Vittoria gave DHI Jackpot a quick whizz round the open intermediate at Aston-le-Walls, then went straight to the CCI4*-L at Millstreet in Ireland to get his qualification for this Europeans.
“It was a bit of gamble – there aren’t many horses you can jump on like that and go straight round a four-star long and see the odd stride, but, luckily, it paid off,” said Vittoria with a wry smile.
It isn’t difficult to see the toll the huge stress of the past couple of years and the helplessness she has felt at an intractable and unfair process has taken on Vittoria. Always polite and articulate, she would clearly rather wait, however, until cross-country is over to wax very lyrical about DHI Jackpot’s talent and ability.
“His strengths and weaknesses complement my strengths and weaknesses,” she says, “and he was really concentrating today and trying [they scored 33.2 and lie 26th after dressage]. But we’ve had a short prep and I think he is still at a ‘changing’ sort of age. Some more events this year would have given me more time to figure out everything – what works, what doesn’t work. He is maturing, and he might need a bit more time.”
A good clear cross-country round would begin to give Vittoria a little mental compensation for a fairly dreadful couple of years, and help her find a firmer foothold on the sport and way of life she thought she had lost.
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