By Liis Ira / ESHBS
Photography: Ridehesten.com
A total of 32 young sport horses between the ages of two and three years gathered at the Vaikla Equestrian Centre at the beginning of October for the inspection that would select the best mares and stallions of their age-group in 2020.
If in previous years there has always been a foreign judge to make the selection, then this year for obvious reasons Estonians had to manage with their own forces. Our own judges – Raigo Kollom, Ivo Ots and Hanno Ellermann – certainly proved their competence in evaluating these young sport horses. Kollom has been inspecting at pre-selections for more than 20 years already, while Hanno Ellermann was chosen to perform his role as someone who has more than 10 years of experience working with Team Njihof. Ivo Ots is a talented young rider and the breeder of Grand Prix level horse Dorado (A Pikachu de Muze) ridden by Max O'Reilly Hyland.
On the first day the horses were presented on hard ground in the morning and, later, each had 10 minutes in the arena to show their free movements and jumping. The second day’s scedule went faster due to the ‘live’ broadcast – just five minutes for each horse to perform.
Although on the first day the judges gave the horses time to adapt to the new arena and crowds, on day two the fences went higher, quicker, and the committee was determined to identify the jumper with the most quality (or the horse with the best paces) in each age-group in order to determine the winner. After all, the breeding is about performance-oriented sport horses.
Estonian Sport Horses showed themselves to be the best in two categories, but the success of imported horses was also delightful as it’s considered a positive step if breeders invest in high-quality imported genetics to promote breeding... To read the complete article you need to be a subscriber
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