In Tuesday’s news and notes, Annie wrote about Nina Ligon’s purchase of this year’s Luhmuhlen champion, Euroridings Butts Leon. Woodburn’s passing overshadowed that story, but it is a decisive move to accomplish what I think is a very admirable goal–going to the Olympics. I’m very jealous but also very happy for Nina because she is one of the hardest workers I know. In eventing you need countless things to come together to succeed, but having enough sound big-time horses is at the top of the list.
As I look at the best horses for the United States, I wonder how many sound big-time horses we will have next July. The good news is that US training list rider Julian Stiller added an incredibly talented horse to her arsenal this week when she bought the German European Games long listed horse Charlie Weld from Kai Ruder. As we all know, Joules is based in the UK at her own beautiful Headley Stud farm and she was named to the USEF training list earlier this summer.
Charlie Weld is a 9 year old Hanovarian and one of the top Olympic prospect horses in all of Europe. He won the Le Lion d’Angers 7 year old world championship CCI2*, and then won the Bramham CCI3* this June with Kai Ruder.
I spoke with Julian about her new ride and she said that she is particularly excited because Kai does such a good job producing horses to the top level. Kai sold Julian her previous top London prospect horse, *Carolinas, who was sadly injured this spring. Joules said that she will wait to see how a first few intermediate competitions go before making an autumn plan, but Boekelo might be in the future for Charlie Weld.
I wrote about visiting the amazing Headley Stud during my trip to England earlier this summer, and it truly is an incredible training facility. Joules also has a great coach in Mark Todd. With the addition of Charlie Weld to her other numerous advanced horses, she likely has one of the top 15 best arsenals of horses in the world, and she is putting all of the right pieces together to be a top rider for the US for a long time.
Anyone looking to upgrade their eventing arsenal for the Olympics has until the end of the year to do so and vice versa for anyone looking to sell their top horse. But frankly, after the recent sales of Mensa, Euroridings Butts Leon, and Charlie Weld, there just aren’t that many truly world class horses left on the market.
Go eventing.
