Carl Hester back in international business with 13 year old gelding Fame

CDI3 Grand Prix in Tolbert

A huge field for today´s Grand Prix in Tolbert. A total of 29 combinations from 12 different countries were at the list for the Grand Prix.

A quick look down the list showing Carl Hester, Severo Jurado Lopez and Emma Kanerva as some of the top riders.

It was a really nice international come back for Carl Hester as we haven´t seen him in an international arena since March 2022 with En Vogue.

Today he was back with a fairly new partnership, 13 year old KWPN gelding Fame by Bordeaux / Rhodium, owned by Fiona Bigwood. The gelding made his international debut together with his owner Fiona Bigwood back in 2021, and as Carl has been training them he of course already knew Fame. Back in January Carl Hester made his national debut together with Fame where he told Horse & Hound, that Fiona was busy campaigning her lovely Dante Weltino son Daytona Platinum at Grand Prix level and therefore she offered Carl the ride.

Carl now have had Fame for about 5 months and he really enjoy the ride. After today´s winning performance (75,891%) Carl was of course very pleased and said: “I think he will be lovely, I just adore him.”

H2R comments during the test today:

Superb entering halt, well balanced diagonal, half pass right nice flow, left lacking tiny balance at end, good halt with rein back, nice diagonal, good into passage, nice angle and activity for plaffe with smooth transitions, good into walk, the walk tour need more relaxation, but collected walk becomes better, good into passage, nice piaffe at the spot, good transitions easy and supple, nice into canter, good two times, super nice zigzag, good 1 times, nice extended center bit small change, good pirouettes, with a path on the neck, good into trot, nice diagonal, super final and super halt. For some moments Fame becomes bit short in the neck.

A really exciting new combination not just for this summer at the European Championships, but also for next year´s Olympics in Paris, where Carl Hester of course also would love to be able to campaign with Fame.

For today´s Grand Prix Finland´s Emma Kanerva showed a strong well balanced performance with the 11 year old mare Feldrose FRH scoring 71,630%, with Spain´s Severo Jurado Lopez and Fürstenglory on 3rd place with 71,609% with two technical errors after extended canter and for the two times.

Here you find the entire results.