Solos Carex Passed Away

Dressage

Sweden

Solos Carex, Tinne Vilhelmson's 2008 Olympic ride and former licensed breeding stallion, has passed away on 9 February 2022. He was 29 years old.

Solos Carex was a Danish warmblood stallion by Castro out of Solos Larix (by Lagano x Tasano x Caruso). He was bred by Barbro and Lorenz Linnet in Vojens, Denmark.

Licensed Stallion

He was champion of the 1996 Danish warmblood stallion licensing and did his stallion performance test in 1996. He placed first for dressage (8,22 points) and second in show jumping (7,34 points).

The young stallion sold to Henrik Hansen, Vivi and Morten Thomsen. He won the Danish breeder's trophy in 1997 as the highest scoring stallion in the performance test. Trained and competed by Morten Thomsen, Carex won the 1998 Danish Young Horse Championship as a 5-year old and the Nordic Dressage Championship in 1999.

Tinne Vilhelmson

Morten Thomsen on Solos Carex in the late 1990s

He sold to Antonia Ax:son Johnson and Per-Göran Ernefelt in 2000 as a Swedish team hopeful for Tinne Vilhelmson. He was 7 at the time.

The new pair competed in their first Championship at the 2002 at the World Equestrian Games in Jerez, Spain. After that he was competed only lightly at international shows as he stood in the shadow of Tinne's number one Just Mickey at the time. He contested for instance the 2002 CDI Dusseldorf, 2003 CDI-W Maastricht and CDI Norten Hardenberg, the 2004 CDIO Aachen, and in 2005 he did Wiesbaden, Falsterbo, and Frankfurt.

Carex was castrated to focus exclusively on dressage instead of breeding and after the untimely passing of Just Mickey in June 2006, Solos Carex became Tinne's principal horse.

They placed 20th in the Special at the 2006 World Equestrian Games in Aachen, were 6th in the 2007 World Cup Finals in Las Vegas, won team bronze and placed 6th individually at the 2007 European Championships in Turin. He won bronze at the 2006 Swedish Grand Prix Championships and silver in 2007. In 2008 he went to the Olympic Games in Hong Kong, where they were 12th in the Kur.

Their last competition year was in 2009 with CDI starts in Den Bosch, Dortmund, Lingen, Aachen, Falsterbo, Wroclaw, Odense and Stockholm. Tinne rode the 2009 Europeans in Windsor (GBR) on her younger Grand Prix horse Favourit.

Retirement and Legacy

Solos Carex officially retired from sport with a special ceremony held at the Goteborg International Horse Show in Sweden on 27 February 2010.

He spent 11 years of retirement in the field with a shetland pony Leo and mare to keep him company at Caroline and Florian Darcourt's private stable in Sweden.

Although Solos Carex' breeding career was short lived and considered a rather "old fashioned" stallion, he certainly proved the worth of tradition and "old school" breeding, as he produced strong horses that are versatile and talented for Grand Prix sport.

His most famous offspring is the KWPN stallion Scandic (by Solos Carex x Admiral), who under Patrik Kittel won kur bronze at the 2013 European Championships in Rotterdam.

At the 2008 Olympic Games
(Photo © Franz Venhaus)

Further Grand Prix offspring by Carex are Cadillac (Catherine Haddad), Carte d'Or (Camilla Kalseth), Vestergaarden Cheval (Daniel Bachmann Andersen), Shogun (Dieter Laugks), Engvangs Cadeau (Paticia Scharli), Duschesse (Cecilia Bergakra), etc. Former owner Henrik Hansen's best brood mar Rapitala has Solos Carex as grand sire. She produced triple World Young Horse Champion Fiontini.