International Grand Prix Mare Nora Moves to Egypt

Dressage

The Netherlands

The internationally competed Grand Prix mare Nora has moved on to her Egyptian owner Shahinaz El-Naggar.

Nora is a 19-year old Oldenburg mare by Night and Day out of Lucy (by Landadel). She is bred by Bernhard Schrapper.

Germany

The black mare began her sport career in Germany as a show jumping horse.

Mario Stevens first competed her as a 4-year old in an L-level jumping class at a local show in Varel-Rallenbüschen. A week later he rode her one more time in a jumper event and that was the end of the mare's official jumper career.

UK and Taiwan

Nora sold as a dressage horse to the the U.K.

She was first competed by Olive Eve and Mai Lara McLean at Btirish regional shows in 2009.

In 2012 the mare sold as a small tour horse to the Taiwanese rider Vivian Chang, who arrived in the U.K. in 2007 to write her PhD in chemistry at Oxford University. She made her competition debut with the Oldenburg mare in May 2013. Their international show debut followed in August 2013 at the CDI Hickstead.

The combination campaigned at CDI's in Anrheim, Hartpury and Hickstead in 2014 in preparation of the Asian Games in Incheon, Korea, where they finished 11th in the Prix St Georges and Intermediaire I and 14th in the Inter I Kur to Music finals.

In 2015 they rode in Compiegne, Hartpury and Hickstead, moving her up to medium tour level at the CDI Perl in the summer of 2015. In 2016 they tried their luck at Grand Prix level with starts in Lisbon, Jerez de la Frontera, and Deauville.

The Netherlands

In 2017 the mare moved to The Netherlands and went into training with Christa Larmoyeur. She stayed with the Dutch professional for four years.

Larmoyeur only briefly competed her internationally and mainly focused on national level sport. Their first CDI was the 2017 CDI Oldenburg where they posted a 64% and 68% score at Grand Prix level. In 2018 they rode their only and last international in Exloo with scored of 65.891% in the Grand Prix and 69.40% in the Kur.

"She's a horse with a golden character," Christa told Eurodressage. "She really wanted to work for me and that's why we made such quick progress and scored high."

Egypt

The 19-year old mare has now gone on to her owner as a schoolmaster. Since moving to The Netherlands, the mare was owned by the Egyptian Shahinaz El-Naggar.

"She's a horse I had an incredible amount of fun with, but of which I knew that sooner or later she would leave for her owner in Egypt," Larmoyeur wrote on Facebook. "I hope Shahinaz will have as much with her as I have had."

Larmoyeur regularly travelled to Egypt to train El-Nagger there, while Shahaniz also came to Holland to be coached.

El-Naggar (also spelled El-Najjar) has been competing since 2009 with Hurricane. She also owned horses Usual Suspect (by Jazz) and Bud Spencer (by Biotop). In 2014-2015 she worked with Janneke van Riet in The Netherlands and won the Egyptian Small Tour Championship those years. She switched to Christa Larmoyeur after that.

On a professional level Shahahinaz became Egypt’s youngest Member of Parliament in a male dominated political world in 2005. She wed steel tycoon Ahmed Ezz as his third wife, receiving the rumoured highest dowry of a bride in modern Egypt (25 million Egyptian pounds). She retired from Parliament shortly after her marriage. Ezz, who had close ties to Gamal Mubarak, was incarcerated during the 2011 revolution, but acquitted in June 2013. In 2015 El-Naggar ran again for Parliament.