Ferguson Moves on to Sixth Rider, Esmee van Gijtenbeek

Breeding

KWPN

The 10-year old Hanoverian licensed stallion Ferguson has moved on to his sixth rider, Esmee van Gijtenbeek.

Ferguson is a 2011 born Hanoverian stallion by Floriscount out of Liebelei (by Lauries Crusador xx x Wolkentanz I). He is bred by Erika Lütjen.

Licensed

He was named premium at the 2013 Hanoverian Stallion Licensing in Verden and owned by the Swiss Dr. Hans Jörg Hereth at the time. He sold at auction for 80,000 euro to the Indonesian Titan Wilaras.

Ferguson moved to Wilaras' Dutch base, Platinum Stables and was licensed at the 2014 KWPN Stallion Licensing. He also finished third with 85 points in the 2014 KWPN Spring Stallion Performance Testing.

Young Horse Success

He was first started in dressage under Tommie Visser, but in the autumn of 2014 Kirsten Brouwer took over. The new pair was fourth at the 2015 Pavo Cup Finals and fifth at the 2016 Pavo Cup Finals.

They were also selected for the 2016 World Young Horse Championships in Ermelo to represent Germany on a wild card, but the FEI rejected the wild card system as all entries had been filled.

After Brouwer fell out with owner Wilaras, the Spaniard Antonio Laiz Zandio was allocated the ride. He left the stable after one year and the horse briefly moved to Ukrainian Inna Logutenkova, who is based in Belgium.

Vermunt and Bruinier

In April 2019 Ferguson sold to Dutch investors' duo Rom Vermunt and Harld Bruinier in a blow out sale of the troubled Platinum stables.

The new owners' duo sent the stallion to Bart Veeze for training.

With Veeze Ferguson was the runner-up in the demonstration competition "VHO Trophy" at the 2020 KWPN Stallion licensing in Den Bosch. In 2020 the pair competed at national small tour level while Veeze trained the stallion up to schooling Grand Prix level.

Sixth Rider

Vermunt and Bruinier have now decided to give the ride on the liver chestnut stallion to Esmee van Gijtenbeek.

"I'm happy to have been given the opportunity of working with this sensational horse," said Esmee on social media. "Adding so much grace and moves in dressage sports and breeding. We will slowly getting prepared for the Big Tour in dressage."

The 28-year old Van Gijtenbeek has mainly competed at Dutch national level. Her international show debut was in 2018 at the World Young Horse Championships in Ermelo, where she rode Hot Chocolate (by Apache x Dreamcatcher) to an 11th place in the 6-year old consolation finals.