A very, very important win that needs sharing!

The dressage world has gotten to be such a close community. We can watch the competition live on the internet from the top shows in Europe, or at the very least enjoy live scoring results come through in real time. No longer is there a week long (or longer) wait for the placings and scores to be churned through the rumor mill...nope, they are accessible and easy to verify! Thank goodness! And with this instant feedback comes a closer gathering of people who are linked through horse's bloodlines and this is the really fun part to me - we have friends all over the globe who are very excited about the success of Dressage Royal's get. For example, Doringcourt lives in New Zealand but was born in Germany. He just won the Medium Advanced Championships for Andrea and shows great promise for the upper levels. Desperado OLD was the World Champion 5 Year Old in 2008 under Nadine Plaster, Damsey was bred by Dorit & Hermann (who own DR) - it's like a huge extended family all over the globe! :)

2008 WCYH


And yesterday morning, Desperado OLD and Carola Koppelmann won the Nurnberger Burg-Pokal Final (7-9 Year old PSG for the top 12 qualified horses in all of Germany) by a 38 point margin over Olympic Champion Isabell Werth! Desperado's final score was 75.45% and he is just 8 years old! Congratulations to all of his connections - his breeders, his owner Ralf Hartmann, the folks at Pferde 24 (who bought him at the Oldenburg Elite Auction in 2007), and of course to Carola for all her hard work!

Now, some folks have not joined Facebook. I respect that, I really do. BUT...there are a few albums of photographs already online from the competition, so if you would like a peak at the lovely mature horse Desperado OLD has become...it's time to sign up!

Photo Album #1 has images of the entire class. Desperado OLD is in the first 2 and then has the blue cooler and ribbon on part way through.

Album #2 does not have any images of Desperado OLD but a few of the other horses that show the quality of the riding, training of his competitors!

And it is also worth mentioning Dressage Royal had another son in this class - the 9 year old licensed stallion Damsey! Damsey was 6th in the Warm Up Test and 11th in the Final. Like Desperado OLD, Damsey participated in the WCYH with fair results, but without the overall victories.

Some of you might be wondering why all the fuss about a stallion having 2 sons in this prestigious competition...and I am happy to explain! :) (there's a surprise, right?) So Dressage Royal is a privately owned stallion in Germany. He does not stand at a large stallion station with a book of several hundred domestic mares and large export business - and the advertising budget to match! So in other words, he get a good number of mares (by American standards) each year and has semen here in the US for distribution but is not producing 100's of foals...given that information - WOW! This is a very, very big deal to have so much success from smaller foal crops!!!

If any of the larger media outlets - Eurodressage, Dressage Daily or Dressage News have any reports or photos - I will publish the links so we can all enjoy seeing and reading about the competition and the commentary on the rides themselves! So check back in a few days!

Bottom line - CONGRATULATIONS DRESSAGE ROYAL!
CONGRATULATIONS DESPERADO OLD!!!!!