Lissaro van de Helle Retired from Sport

Dressage

Germany

German junior rider Valentina Pistner has retired Lissaro van de Helle from competition sport.

Lissaro van de Helle is a 16-year old Hanoverian stallion by Lissabon out of Marquesa (by Matcho AA x Garibaldi II x Diskant). He is bred by Jürgen Dittmer.

Show Jumping Prospect Turns Dressage Medal Winner

The bay stallion was licensed at the 2007 Hanoverian Stallion Licensing, where Belgian show jumping stallion owner Paul Mais bought him in the licensing as a future jumper prospect.

Lissaro did his 30-day performance test in 2008 in Munster-Handorf and scored 9.52 for dressage and 8.79 for show jumping as the high scorer of the testing. His scores underlined his versatility and talent for dressage.

The bay stallion initially stood at stud at Hof Rüscher-Konermann and was trained and was competed by Claudia Rüscher. She developed him into a medal winning young star. They became triple Bundeschampionate winner and claimed silver at the 2010 World Young Horse Championships in Verden.

From Gal to Celle

When Ruscher started working for Heinrich Ramsbrock in Menslage, Mais had to find a new rider for him. In May 2011 Mais moved Lissaro to Edward Gal's yard in The Netherlands but it was only a short lived stay.

For the 2012 breeding season the stallion was leased to the State Stud in Celle, where head rider Wolfhard Witte trained the horse up to S-level. The pair mainly competed at local shows between 2012 till 2016. An international career seemed off the table for the stallion.

Valentina Pistner

Lissaro returned to the spotlight when the Pistner family from Bad Homburg, Germany, acquired him as an 11-year old at the end of 2016.

He was intended to become Valentina Pistner's junior riders horse, who at the time was competing former European Pony Champion Champ of Class at FEI pony level and Dorino in the children's division.

Valentina and Lissaro made their show debut in January 2017 in Ankum and rode their first international at junior level three months later at the 2017 CDI Lier in Belgium. Lissaro then disappeared from the show scene for two years and a real break through never happened with this horse. Instead Pistner became highly successful on her other horse, QC Flamboyant, with whom she became a decorated medal winner at the European Championships.

Lissaro ended up being only lightly shown. He resurfaced three times in 2019, did one show in 2020, and this year Valentina competed him twice in Darmstadt-Kranichstein. Their last start was in April 2021 where they finish second in the St. Georg Special.

Retirement

A few weeks ago, Lissaro was retired from sport, Pistner told Eurodressage.

"He's staying in our stable. He's in the field at our place and we're taking care of him because we want him close to us and take care of him for everything he has done for us," Valentina told Eurodressage. "We're planning on breeding with him, but only frozen semen. We would love to have more foals."

As a breeding stallion he has sired five licensed sons (Lilliano, Labbadio, Lassaro, Louis d'Or Gold, and 22 state premium daughters.

For Valentina 2021 was a quiet year, competitively, as her top ride Flamboyant recovered from injury. She is now focusing on a 6-year old mare (by Belissimo M x Sezuan) for the future and plans to make a come back with Flamboyant in 2022.

Pistner trains with long-time coach Stefanie Kerner and they recently moved yards with the sport horses, from Alex Schneider's stable to equestrian centre Loth in Friedberg.