Guateque IV, Canadian Olympic Short Listed Horse, Allocated to New Rider

Dressage

Spain

Guateque IV, Ariana Chia's Canadian Olympic short-listed team horse, has been allocated a new rider. Owner Miguel Coves decided to give the ride to U.S based Spaniard Paula Matute.

Guateque IV is a 14-year old PRE stallion bred in the U.S.A.. He is by Layco out of Yazmin (by Salinero XIII) and bred and owned at Coves Darden Farm.

String of Riders

The grey stallion has had a string of riders in his career.

He was first started as a 3-year old by Dorothea Darden, who competed him in the USA for two years.

In the autumn of 2014 Laura Cross (now Abner) began showing him and in 2015 it was Stacey Hastings' turn. She placed 14th with him at the 2015 U.S. Young Horse Championships and showed him up to fourth level until the end of 2017 after which Melanie Montagano took place in the saddle at the start of 2018, followed by Katie Poag halfway through the year.

With Juan Matute at the 2019 CDI Leudelange

In 2019 the horse had three different riders. Poag debuted Guateque at CDI small tour level at the 2019 CDI Wellington in January 2019 and rode him in two internationals. However as of February 2019 it was Carlos Nieto Benavides who competed him in Florida in February. Shortly afterwards the horse was flown to Europe, where Juan Matute Guimon began training him. They made their CDI premier in Segovia in May 2019 and he campaigned hl at the CDI Leudelange as well. In 2020 Matute suffered his brain bleed and underwent a long rehabilitation. Guateque returned to the U.S.A.

Back in the States, the ride was allocated to Jessica Starck who rode Guateque down the centerline in the horse’s first national Grand Prix test in 2021. In 2022 Juan Matute competed him in one show at Inter II level at the Global Dressage Festival but in the summer of 2022 the ride went to Georgia Wren-Russ. She premiered the horse at international medium tour level at the CDI Wellington in March 2023.

Ariana Chia

For the 2024 Olympic season, Coves Darden made an agreement with Wellington based Canadian Ariana Chia to try for the Canadian Olympic team.

With Georgia Wren-Russ in 2023
(Photo © Lily Forado)

After a solid CDI season in Wellington, Myakka City and Ocala, Chia and Guateque IV ranked fifth on the Canadian Olympic team ranking and were named second reserve. Chia lodged an appeal alleging conflict of interest in the selection process as the voting committee included a competing athlete as well as the wife of the selected reserve rider. The Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada confirmed this conflict of interest. Renowned arbitrator Richard H. McLaren (known as one of the three members of the WADA Commission to investigate allegations of state-sponsored doping in Russia) ruled. Two members of the nominations committee (Denielle Gallagher, Lisa von Martels) were removed and replaced by one new voting member, Wendy Christoff. It re-nominated the original team.

According to Chia Equestrian Canada continued to put spanners in the works as they claimed first there was no money to fly Guateque to Europe for training camp. After a complaint was filed, half the flight budget came available. Chia was told she would not join the team at their camp in Belgium, but would be sent to Jardy in France, where a different vet would assess the fitness of her horse, instead of the main dressage vet.

Chia and Guateque were supposed to fly to Europe on 17 July, but the Guateque team then decided to not go and their Olympic campaign ended.

Paula Matute

Owner Coves Darden Farm has now moved Guateque to a new rider in Wellington, his eleventh in his career so far. Paula Matute Guimon has climbed aboard to continue the stallion's sport career. She trains with Alison Brock.

"With Ariana Chia there was a very specific project to compete for the qualification for the Paris'24 Olympics with Canada, country where she is a native and citizen," Miguel Coves told Eurodressage. "This is the reason that has kept Ariana Chia for a year working with Coves Darden. Once this project is over, everyone goes their own way."

Chia told Eurodressage that she decided to end the collaboration with Coves Darden. "They asked me to continue training their horses but after the Olympics I decided to end things with the owners and explore new opportunities," Ariana stated.

Paula also received the ride on Coves Darden's 8-year old PRE stallion Faro CDF (by Nevado CLXXI x Layco).

Finding The Right Match

When asked by Guateque had so many different riders in his career, Coves replied that "given the nature of our business, which is the breeding of PRE horses in the USA for sport, with all of them we had a mixed working relationship of training and selling our young horses and training and competing the stallions of the breeding operation."

Coves explained that Juan's health issues also led to several rider changes.

"In that transition period we were trying several riders with the intention of finding the right rider for Guateque," said Miguel. "In 2022 we talked to Georgia Wren Russ, who at that time had time available to help us during the transition period. Circumstance that she knew how to take good advantage of, achieving the greatest successes of her career as a dressage rider. It was at the end of that 22/23 season when Ariana Chia contacted us, presenting the Paris'24 project with Canada. We discussed it with Georgia and decided to go ahead with Ariana Chia."

Coves added that Guateque is not for sale as he's is the farm's "life-time project" and an instrumental part of the breeding programme with the main farm in South Carolina.