Beatrice Marienau Retires Quartermain from Sport

Dressage

U.S.A.

American Grand Prix rider Beatrice Marienau has retired her Grand Prix horse Quartermain from sport. A returning suspensory injury cut the sport career of this horse short.

Quartermain is a 15-year old Hanoverian gelding by Quarterback out of World Lady (by Wilawander xx). He is bred by Anette Holst in Denmark.

Marina Mattsson

Danish Flemming Thomsen first trained the chestnut gelding before he sold to Swedish horse investor Patrick Hannell. His head rider Marina Mattsson climbed aboard and produced the horse to Grand Prix level under the watchful eyes of Jan Brink.

The pair made its international show debut at small tour level in 2017 at the CDI Lier, where they won the Prix St Georges and Inter I Kur. Fourteen months later they returned to the CDI ring at Under 25 level at the 2018 CDIO Uggerhalne, where they won the Inter II and placed second in the Short Grand Prix. They rode at the CDIO-U25 in Aachen and represented Sweden at the European Under 25 Championships in Exloo, where they were fifth in the Kur.

In 2019 the pair competed in Herning, Uggerhalne, and Stockholm. They were selected on the Swedish team for the 2019 European Under 25 Championships in Italy but didn't go. They won the 2018 and 2019 Swedish Under 25 Championship. At the 2020 Swedish Dressage Championships for senior Grand Prix riders the pair won bronze.

Beatrice Marienau

Quartermain was on the market after the summer of 2020 and Beatrice Marienau’s trainer Leida Collins-Strijk recommended the horse to her. He sold in the winter of 2020-2021.

"Leida Collins found him during Covid, so I wasn’t able to ever try him even out. I saw him in the videos and I fell in love with him," Marienau explained about the purchased process.

The horse was shipped to Stillpoint Farm in Wellington, Florida, where Marienau is based in winters and then trains with Canadian Chris von Martels. Unfortunately Beatrice's personal health issues in 2021 prevented the pair from taking a flying start in the show ring. The horse was put in training with Leida as Beatrice need almost five months to recover from heart surgery and then the slow process of regaining her fitness followed.

Retirement

Beatrice and Quartermain (photo © private)

Marienau was never able to compete Quartermain due to returning suspensory injuries.

She explained the horse's story: "When he came back to me we worked on our partnership and it was so beautiful and special to feel him becoming my horse. Unfortunately about every 6 months he suffered from a suspensory injury which was later diagnosed as a chronic suspensory disease the end of last year. It broke my heart heart every time he went lame again and had to go back to rehabbing."

Marienau stated that Quartermain was brought back to field fitness so he could enjoy a happy retirement turned out.

"We tried everything possible, but after the last time he went lame I decided to rehab him one more time so that he could go out to the fields for retirement, pain free and enjoy the rest of his life being a horse," she said.