Impression, New Paris Olympic Hopeful for Kiichi Harada

Dressage

Japan

Japanese Grand Prix rider Kiichi Harada has a new 2024 Paris Olympic hopeful in the barn, Impression. Harada's sponsor acquired the 10-year old KWPN stallion.

Impression is by Don Schufro out of elite mare Wicara (by Ferro). He is bred by Matthijs Maat.

Licensed Stallion

Owned by the breeder in partnership with Joop van Uytert, Impression was approved at the 2016 KWPN Stallion Licensing and scored 78.5 points in the 2016 KWPN Spring 70-day stallion performance testing.

Trained by Diederik van Silfhout, he was 8th in the 2019 KWPN Stallion Competition finals and a few months later won silver at the 2019 Dutch Dressage Championships at ZZ-zwaar level.

They made their international show debut in March 2020 at the CDI Lier, where they won the Prix St Georges and were second in the Inter I and Inter I Kur. It was the stallion's first and only CDI competition, so far. At the 2020 Dutch Championships they got silver at small tour level.

Sold to Switzerland

In the autumn of 2022 Impression sold to Swiss sponsor Isabelle Ros for Delia Eggenberger to ride.

The new combination, however, never competed nationally or internationally and the horse soon returned on the market.

Sold to Japan

Impression has now found a new rider in Japanese Kiichi Harada who trains with Christoph Koschel. The combination made its first public appearance at the CDI Grote Brogel where they were training.

Harada is the 2015 and 2021 Japanese Grand Prix Champion. He was member of the Japanese team at the 2016 Olympics but missed out on team selection at the 2021 Olympics on home turf in Tokyo. Since 2022 been competing Sir Galanto (by Stedinger x De Niro) for owner Chiemi Katayama in Europe and Wellington, Florida.

Sir Galanto is now 18 years old and Impression could be his successor.

Kiichi commutes between Japan and Germany. He is also in charge of Old Friends Japan, an organization that takes care of and retrains retired TB racehorses in Japan.