Charlotte Lenherr and Darko of De Niro ZS No Longer a Combination

Dressage

Switzerland

The Swiss Grand Prix combination Charlotte Lenherr and Darko of De Niro is no more. The owner has decided to pull the horse away from Lenherr and give it to his partner as a schoolmaster.

Darko of De Niro ZS is a 16-year old Swiss warmblood by De Niro out of Diana (by Gagneur x Isidore). He is bred by Thomas Schneider and owned by Thomas and Mauz Zellweger-Schmidhauser.

International Show Career

Under Isabel Jüstrich, Darko of De Niro won the 2009 Swiss Young Horse Championships as a 5-year old. With Sandra Meier he was the silver medalist at the 2010 Swiss Young Horse Championships in the 6-year old class, and in 2011 Stephan Bischof rode him to silver in the 7-year old division at the 2011 Nationals.

The black made its international show debut at small tour level in 2013 under Bischof. They pair competed at two CDI's: the 2013 CDI Lingen and the 2014 CDI Stadl Paura.

The horse then moved to the stables of the British born Charlotte "Tiggy" Lenherr who made her international show debut on Darko at the 2016 CDI Le Mans, where they scored 66.340% in the Grand Prix and 70.00% in the freestyle. They won bronze at the 2016 Swiss Grand Prix Championships.

Lenherr and Darko of De Niro competed at international Grand Prix level from 2016 till February 2020. The pair showed at CDI's in Compiegne, Mariakalnok, Deauville, Wiener Neustadt, Nice, Ebreichsdorf, and Ranshofen.

The pair twice represented Switzerland at the European Championships. In 2017 they went to the Europeans in Gothenburg, but were unfortunately eliminated from the Grand Prix after Darko bit his tongue. In 2019 they rode at the Europeans in Rotterdam and finished 53rd in the Grand Prix with 66.957%. They also scored bronze at the 2019 Swiss Nationals.

Retirement after Le Mans

Lenherr and Darko of De Niro at the 2017 CDIO Compiegne

Their last competition was the CDI Le Mans one month ago, where they scored 64.739% in the Grand Prix.

Lenherr had planned to retire Darko of De Niro from international competition sport and give him an easier life at her barn, but owner Zellweger decided to bring home the horse and give the ride to his partner as a schoolmaster.

"He was very fit during the winter but in Le Mans this year I really felt him struggling to give me what is needed for Grand Prix," Lenherr told Eurodressage. "I told the owner I felt retirement from Sport would be the fairest decision for him. He‘s 16 now and felt tired."

She continued: "I fully expected to be able to give him a perfect retirement and give him back everything he did for me for the past 5 years. He was a real friend during this time. Sadly it was not to be. He has now been moved on to be a schoolmaster, and I miss him greatly."