There are so many great horses throughout the annals of eventing that many of us can only look back on with a sort of dim, fond nostalgia that comes with having missed out on the peak of their careers — Mark Todd’s Charisma, Lucinda Green’s Regal Realm, and Ginny Leng’s Priceless, for example — but one of the greatest of all time is a horse we’ve all had the recent thrill and privilege to enjoy.
Michael Jung‘s La Biosthetique Sam FBW is the latest horse to receive the FEI’s Horse Hero honour, and rightly so: throughout his career, the ultra-consistent German superstar racked up more extraordinary successes than an entire stable-full of five-star horses could dream of between them. Back-to-back runner-up spots at the Young Horse World Championships preceded an unprecedented string of results to come, including gold medals at the London and Rio Olympics, the 2010 World Equestrian Games, the 2011 European Championships, and wins at Luhmühlen, Badminton, and Burghley — and from mid-2006 until early 2015, he was never out of the top five in an international.
Join us in a look back over this stellar horse’s impactful and impressive career — we challenge you not to get a bit teary-eyed at the eventing history you’ve witnessed.
