Thomas Wagner's Soul Men Sold to German Young Rider

Dressage

Germany

Thomas Wagner's young Grand Prix horse Soul Men has been sold to a German young rider. The bay gelding will continue his sport career under Paul Löcher.

Soul Men is a 14-year old Hanoverian gelding by Soliman de Hus out of Bella Donna (by Brentano II x Roncalli xx x Don Carlos). He is bred by Josef Bramlage

Thomas Wagner

He was first competed as a 5-year old in 2015 by Desiree Ziolkowski. A year later Stefanie Meyer-Biss rode him in the L-level tests, before the horse sold to Michel Torsten, the sponsor of Hessian based professional dressage rider Thomas Wagner and husband of Ulrike Michel, who owned Wagner's career starting horse Very Keen.

Wagner debuted him at developing Prix St Georges horse level in 2018 in Donaueschingen. They competed on the Nurnberger Burgpokal circuit in 2018 and 2019 and made it to the 2019 Finals in Frankfurt, where they finished 8th.

In 2020 Wagner and Soul Men premiered at Inter II level at Gut Ising and in 2021 competed in the classic Grand Prix tour at shows in Bettenrode, Neu-Anspach, Reutlingen and Darmstadt. The pair won the Hessian regional Championships.

Wagner continued to put mileage on Soul Men at Grand Prix level at several national shows in 2022, winning in Ladenbug and at Hof Bettenrode. They also won the first round of the Hessian Regional Championship in Darmstadt.

Internationally they only appeared in one CDI and scored 63.848% in the Grand Prix at the 2022 CDI Donaueschingen. In 2023 Wagner rode the dark bay gelding at several shows in South Germany.

Under 25 Schoolmaster

Löcher and Amaro T at the 2023 CDI
Aachen Festival 4 Dressage

Soul Men has now been sold as a Grand Prix schoolmaster for German young rider Paul Löcher

The 20-year old Löcher made his international show debut as a junior rider in 2021 on Amaro T (by Ampere x Fidermark) and Limoncelli (by Lord Loxley x Graphitano). The past two years he's been competing Amaro T and Fraser Island (by Finest x Laurentio) at international Young Riders Level. Paul finished 8th at the 2023 German Young Riders Championships.

Paul still has one more year to go as a Young Rider and will use this time to establish himself at small tour level while moving into Under 25 Grand Prix level?

"I’ll probably look into smaller Grand Prix tests this season and definitely next season," he told Eurodressage. "I still have to grow into the next, higher class and get to know Soul Men better and adapt to him better. But I am very grateful and happy about this constellation because Thomas Wagner has known him for a long time and has accompanied him and he can give me a lot of helpful tips. Of course you don’t know how quickly and well we will find each other and what bigger goals we will pursue next year. I let this happen relatively spontaneously and don’t approach it with any pressure because I’m ambitious enough."