Rob Roy Passed Away

Dressage

Canada

The 15-year old Hanoverian licensed stallion Rob Roy has passed away. He was euthanized after an accident on Saturday 9 March 2019.

Rob Roy was by Rubin Royal out of Glory Dream (by Glorieux). He was bred by Rolf Eggerking and owned by Louise Leatherdale.

Rob Roy was licensed as a premiumm stallion at the 2006 Hanoverian Stallion Licensing in Verden and sold to the Leatherdales at the auction.

The bay stallion did his 70-day stallion performance test a year later in Radegast, scoring an index of 118.40 for dressage and 112.00 for jumping. He totaled 116.23 points and placed sixth out of 18 participating stallions.

From 2006 till 2014 he was stationed at Jens Meyer in Dorum, Germany. Rob Roy was first competed by Meyer's head rider at the time, Steffen Frahm, in 2008 when the horse was four. The pair moved up the levels and in September 2012 the horse did its first S-level test with Frahm.

In 2013 Annemarie Krone was on board, in 2014 Victoria Harding showed him twice, and Frahm once more in Schiffdorf.

Rob Roy was not very popular with the breeders in Germany. He produced only 23 sport horses and 16 broodmares registered with the German Equestrian Federation; four of them are state premium mares. He has no licensed sons. His most successful offspring in sport is Gestut Bonhomme's gelding Robin (by Rob Roy x Wilawander xx) who did his first national S-level test under Lena Waldmann in November 2018. French Stella Briand currently competes the Rob Roy offspring U2 Jass du Derby in the international children's division.

At the end of 2014 Rob Roy was gelded and crossed the Atlantic to become the future sport horse for Canadian junior rider Vanessa Creech-Terauds. Her mom and trainer is Canadian Grand Prix rider Diane Creech, who has been sponsored by Louise and her late husband Doug Leatherdale for almost two decades.

Vanessa and Rob Roy made their show debut at junior level at the 2015 CDI Cedar Valley and placed second and first twice. In 2016 they moved to Young Riders' level with two CDI starts in Ottawa and Saugerties. They did one international in 2017 in Ottawa and competed in Wellington at two CDI's in 2018. Their last CDI show was in Wellington in March a year ago.

Rob Roy was euthanized on 9 March 2019 after an accident in which he sustained a career ending injury that would prevent a pain-free life in retirement.

"Unfortunately Rob Roy sustained an injury to his fetlock with no helping possible to have him pain free again," Diane Creech told Eurodressage. "With deep sadness we had to make the decision to let him go. We are all heartbroken about this, especially Vanessa, who lost her best friend."

Vanessa is saddened to say goodbye to the horse that started her junior/young rider's career.

"No amount of time is ever enough with a horse, but four years was certainly not enough with my first love," she said. "I lost my best friend and words cannot explain how devastated I am. Four years ago Doug and Louise made my dream come true and flew me out to Germany to meet Rob Roy, who I instantly knew was the one (even though he tested me out with a good buck when I rode him the first time). A horse with a great sense of humour and always keeping everyone on their toes, he never failed to put a smile on my face everyday."