In the first of our new Horse of the Month feature, we take a closer look at this Dressage superstar...
The most majestic of horses, Weihegold Old was destined to be the star of the show in this month’s FEI Dressage World Cup™ Final in Paris.
The Oldenburg mare, the modern day black beauty ridden by Isabell Werth, is the reigning series champion, having won the FEI Dressage World Cup™ Final in Omaha in 2017 and in Paris this weekend.
The pair are well matched, Werth has won more medals than any other equestrian in any discipline. She has been helped significantly in achieving this feat by ‘Weihe’. In 2017 at the European Dressage Championships in Gothenburg, the pair won three gold medals. Together, they have broken the 90% barrier 5 times.
She embodies the almost ideal characteristics of a riding horse
"From the first moment I was in love"
Born on July 7, 2005, Weihegold Old is by Don Schufro out of Sandro Hit. She was bred by Inge and Gunter Bastian in Germany. She’s had foals by embryonic transfer, meaning her offspring have been born to a surrogate dam, without any interruption to Weihegold’s glittering career.
Weihegold is owned by Christine and Frank Arns-Krogmann. Christine first met her as a yearling and loved her from the start.
She says: “A good friend told me about her and I saw her in the stable. Her owner was very proud of her.
From the first moment I was in love with Weihegold Old, she had a super nice movement, super pedigree and was a super type.
But the owner didn’t want to sell her, so I called every day for about six to eight weeks until they agreed!”
Christine backed Weihegold Old herself and rode her as a three-year-old. Her belief in the mare’s quality and future stardom was further cemented when she became the grand champion of the 2008 Oldenburg Elite Mare show in Rastede, Germany.
Oldenburg breeding director Dr Wolfgang Schulze Schleppinghoff said at the time: “Weihegold Old embodies the almost ideal characteristics of a riding horse. She is incredibly beautiful and impressed us most today in walk and trot.”
Weihegold Old began her FEI career with Isabell Werth at the end of 2014.
For a year, in 2015, Weihegold was competed by Werth’s assistant trainer and student Beatrice Buchwald. Beatrice and Weihegold never finished lower than third with 71.804%.
But Weihegold Old’s potential as a German team horse for the Olympics could not be ignored. Werth’s patron Madeline Winter Schulze collaborated with Christine and Frank to make sure Weihegold Old would stay with her rider and represent Germany at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Their faith was once again rewarded as the pair won team gold and individual silver.
They are currently ranked No.1 in the world.
Christine is full of love for Weihegold Old. She says: “She is a very nice horse, she is never nervous, you can ride her wherever and she doesn’t look about elsewhere, she is completely with the rider, she is not looking outside the arena.
“This is important and great for the rider. Horses can have spectacular movement, but can always be looking about left and right. She is easy to handle.
“Sometimes after competitions, horses can be off their food, but she is always the same as she is at home.”
Werth is a four-time winner of the FEI Dressage World Cup Final. Together with Weihegold Old they are the defending series champions.
"She gave me a great feeling"
They qualified automatically for the Final in Paris, but they had to compete in two legs of the series. They have done so, in Stuttgart and Amsterdam, winning both, with scores of 87.575% and 88.540% in the freestyle, respectively.
For Christine, Weihegold Old has been a star from the very beginning.
She says: “She was a super, super, easy character to break in, so easy she gave me a great feeling which is much more important. In all the years and horses we’ve owned and breaked; she was special from that first moment.”
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