During the World Equestrian Games, rumors swirled around the Kentucky Horse Park with whispers of two major horse sales–the wonder-stallion Moorlands Totilas and Michael Jung’s eventing World Champion mount La Biosthetique Sam even while the horses were winning golds at the WEGs. But, when I left Lexington no deal had been finalized for either horse. To the best of my knowledge, Totilas is at his home in the Netherlands, and La Biosthetique Sam is very close to being sold. Well, at least part of “Sam” is close to being sold.
Sam’s majority owner is Sabine Kreuter, who owns 60% of the horse. Sam’s minority owner is Joachim Jung, Michael Jung’s father. Ms. Kreuter decided to sell her share of Sam just prior to or during the Games and, as you might expect, the last two weeks have been filled with offers and counter offers.
Bushchreiter.de reports that Mary King’s husband and Mr. and Mrs. Davies (owners of Imperial Cavalier) made an offer for Sam and the word is that the offer was around 2 million pounds. However, another German website, Horseweb.de, has written that Ms. Kreuter wants to keep Sam in Germany with Michael Jung riding him and she has given Michael’s family a verbal agreement for “the right of pre-emption,” which is presumably the right to veto a sale. Note: Google Translate is the best option for figuring out the German websites.
Holger Heigel, the chairman of the German eventing Olympic committee has reportedly offered Ms. Kreuter 600,000 Euro for her 60% share but their talks have broken down, perhaps as a result of the much larger international offers that Ms. Kreuter has received.
The most promising option so far seems to be for German super-owner Madeleine Winter-Schulze to purchase Sam. Madeleine Winter-Schulze sponsors Ludger Beerbaum and Isabell Werth, and she purchased FRH Butts Abraxxas so that Ingrid Klimke could keep riding that horse. Ms. Winter-Schulze has extremely deep pockets and could match any other offers for the horse and would in all likelihood let Michael keep the ride.
There have also been discussions of trying to put together a syndicate to purchase Ms. Kreuter’s shares. Either way, hopefully the involved parties can find a way to keep the horse for Michael to keep riding.
As sport horses become more and more expensive, the sacred partnership between horse and rider gets pushed farther and farther out of the equation. In this situation with Sam, it seems as though both ownership groups want to keep Michael riding Sam. The potential sale of Totilas looks more bleak for the rider because prices I have heard kicked around are between 10 and 30 million Euros due to the stud fees that Totilas will collect.
Sadly, I have heard barely any talk about what would be best for the horses in the purchasing discussions. More than ever before, eventing is becoming a business sport. The important thing moving forward is to find a way to continue to look out for the best interest of the horse and to respect the bond between rider and horse.
Much of the information from this post came from a very well informed EN reader and insider who we will call LD. Thanks LD and go eventing.
