Lone Jorgensen's number one Grand Prix horse FBW De Vito has been acquired by Wolfgang Striezke and Bettina Schellin as new top horse for Danish Grand Prix rider Martin Christensen. Danish Olympian Lone Jorgensen recently moved to Australia and decided not to take De Vito but sell him instead.
Striezke and Schellin own a beautiful equestrien centre in Pinneberg near Hamburg, where Christensen has been head rider. The Danish born Martin has been competing Schellin's Grand Prix horses Anatol, Aribo and Weissager in the past but aims to make it to the big time with De Vito.
"During a training session at Rudolf Zeilinger's Martin saw De Vito and was struck by the charisma, the easiness for collection and the overall quality of the horse," Schellin told Eurodressage. "Over the summer we found out that it is quite a difficult task to find a potential international Grand Prix horse with the age of 8 or 9. Several offers were rejected and since Martin could not forget De Vito, we seriously discussed this possibility."
Striezke and Schellin, who run a pharmaceutical company, acquired the 10-year old Baden Wurttemberger bred De Vito (by De Niro x Disco Stern x Simon I) last week.
Danish team trainer Rudolf Zeilinger is happy that the horse will continue to be ridden by a Danish rider, so he can keep the horse for future team consideration. Zeilinger will be training the new pair.
"De Vito will move to his new home in the beginning of December so that Martin and De Vito can get familiar with each other over the winter," Schellin explained. "For next year we will see how things are developing, but we will give this partnership all the time it needs."
Photo © Astrid Appels
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