Anna Zibrandtsen's Dorado Looking at New Future with Youth Rider

Dressage

Denmark

In 2016-2017 Danish U25 team rider Anna Zibrandtsen made a few significant buys to enable her transition from Under 25 level to the senior Grand Prix ranks and solidify her future in top sport.

She first purchased Dorado in 2016 and Arlando and Quel Filou followed in 2017. With Arlando she went on to ride on the silver medal winning Danish team at the 2017 European Dressage Championships in Gothenburg. Quel Filou is currently being prepared for his Grand Prix debut.

Dorado, however, only did two national shows in the spring of 2017 and then disappeared from the scene.

WCYH Medallist

Dorado is a 13-year old KWPN licensed stallion by Krack C out of Zinni van de Westen (by Rousseau). He is bred by Cees Kikkert.

Owned by Kikkert in partnership with horse dealer Ad Valk, the gorgeous chestnut was licensed for KWPN breeding but did not cover much. He has only 50 foals registered with the KWPN up till 2015.

In sport he shone under Emmelie Scholtens, who started him as a 3-year old and trained him to small tour level. He was third in the 2013 Pavo Cup Finals and won bronze at the 2013 World Championships for Young Dressage Horses in Verden. They were the runners-up in the 2013-2014 KWPN Stallion Competition Finals and At the 2014 World Young Horse Championships they finished sixth in the finals. In 2016 they captured another bronze at the Dutch Small Tour Championships.

Anna Zibrandtsen

In September 2016 Dorado sold to Anna Zibrandtsen, who owns stable Bregnerødgård in Denmark and trained with Jan Brink at the time.

On 11 - 12 February 2017 the new duo made its show debut at Prix St Georges level at the regional show in Hedensted and scored 69.956% to place third and 72.281% to finish second. A month later they rode their second competition in Holte, where they won the Prix St Georges with 72.719%.

Zibrandtsen then started to train Dorado towards Grand Prix but unfortunately, he sustained an injury and had a long break from sport. He never made a come back to the arena, even though he returned to full training.

New Future Planned

Zibrandtsen disclosed to Eurodressage that Dorado recovered from his injury, but was not gaining the overall fitness she had hoped for.

"At the end of 2019 we detected a heart murmur, because he wasn’t really performing like expected," Anna told Eurodressage.

The condition does not rule him out for sport entirely and Anna said that they might be looking to lease him to a pony or junior rider who can campaign Dorado in the future.

"He can go on lower level, where he doesn’t have to do the biggest effort, but it doesn’t mean that he can't be in the top sport."