Luna Laabs' International FEI Pony Dow Jones Passed Away

Dressage

Germany

Dow Jones, Luna Laabs' first international FEI dressage pony, has passed away from laminitis. He was 25 years old.

Dow Jones was a German Riding Pony by FS Don't Worry out of Carmen (by Castello x Mentos). He was bred by Ulrike Wefelnberg.

String of Riders

The pony was first competed as a 3-year old in 2003 by Carmen-Zita Oehmen, Britta Bernsen and Jennifer Kneupper all in the same year.

Kneupper stayed on board through 2004 and rode him to a 10th place at the Bundeschampionate. Verena Karpinski took over in the autumn of that year and alternated the ride with Kneupper through 2006. At the 2005 Bundeschampionate Jennifer placed 7th with him in the 6-year old division.

As of 2007 it was Isabel Ruthert's turn, who competed him for one year and rode the first FEI pony level test with him.

Saskia Schneppenheim

As of 2009 Dow Jones found a new owner and rider in Saskia Schneppenheim. She competed him for three years until the summer of 2012.

With Schneppenheim at the 2011 CDI-P Hagen

They rode their first German Pony Championships in 2010 to mixed results and she piloted him in his first international FEI pony competitions in 2011 (Beek and Hagen).

In 2012 she showed in Hagen, Munster, Hamburg, Babenhausen amongst other shows and finished 21st in the second round of the 2012 German Pony Championships.

Luna Laabs

Dow Jones then sold to the Laabs Family and Siegfried Laddach for Luna to ride.

She premiered him at the CDN Munster in January 2013 and rode her first CDI in Babenhausen in August 2013, where she won the individual test.

Laabs and Dow Jones showed internationally for four years through 2016 with starts in Roosendaal, Vierzon, Zandhoven, Hagen, Lier, and Zakrzow.

Their best year was in 2014. They were long-listed for German team selection for the 2014 European Pony Championships after placing fourth in the 2014 Preis der Besten, but did not make the team in the end. They were fifth at the 2014 German Pony Championships.

They won the Preis der besten qualifier in Vechta in 2015 and ended up sixth at the PDB in Warendorf. They were 17th at the 2015 German Pony Championships.

Their last international was Zakrzow in November 2016 after which Laabs was no longer eligible to ride ponies internationally due to her age. She continued with Dow Jones on national level at M-level through August 2018.

Schoolmaster

After Laabs Dow Jones continued as a schoolmaster for several riders.

In 2018 Laabs shared the rode on the pony with Catharina Klaas for one season. In 2019 it was Klaas riding him at A-level.

In 2020 Anna Heidhues showed him once. He returned to the ring in 2022 at age 23 with Viktoria Fust. In 2023 he did two tests with Leonie Kellerhoff but Furst finally rode him at three more shows at L-level, their last being on 30 March 2024 when the pony was 25 years of age.

Laminitis

Luna Laabs announced the passing of Dow Jones with a highly emotional statement on Instagram on 1 June 2024.

"It breaks my heart to hear about your suffering and death from strangers yesterday rather than being informed personally by your owner," Laabs stated. "There was no word from your owner, her parent just wrote yesterday by email that he had to be put down because he foundered on Saturday due to a bout of laminitis and the sinking of the coffin bone."

Luna added, "I would have loved to rummage through your mane one last time, give you a kiss and say goodbye to you. You shouldn't leave us like this (...) Unfortunately, you were prone to laminitis, which we communicated openly and handled accordingly - and should have continued to be the case. Now to find out from someone I don't know that he has probably been suffering from an attack for several days is absolutely incomprehensible to me and you, Jones, don't deserve that."

She concluded, "So much has happened between people in the past... I regret so much that I was so deceived by someone, that someone gained my trust and that I let you go after all these years. Take care, my Jonsilas, Jonsi, Jizzle, power pony, rocket, pony man. You enchanted so many people around us and I couldn't believe how many people still have you in their minds."