Salieri OLD Passed Away

Dressage

Austrian Dressage News

The internationally competed Grand Prix horse Salieri OLD has passed away in June 2016 due to complications after colic surgery. The Oldenburg gelding was 18 years old.

The 1998 born Salieri OLD was by Sandro Hit out of Dolores (by Dakota II x Grollus xx x Grusinier) and bred by Andre Hauhut.

The black began his competition career as a 3-year old in the riding horse tests under Jan Dirk Giesselmann. The horse sold as a 4-year old to Elisabeth Max-Theurer at the 2002 Oldenburg Spring Elite Auction in Vechta for 252,000 euro (he was then named Superstar). as an FEI level hopeful for her daughter Victoria.

Victoria and Salieri made their S-level debut in Germany in May 2006 at the CDI Munich and a few months later they made their international Grand Prix debut at the 2006 CDI-W Stuttgart. The pair competed consistently at international Grand Prix level friom 2007 till 2009. In 2008 they won the Austrian Grand Prix Championships together. After their start at the 2009 CDI Weikersdorf in October Vici and Salieri only showed once in 2010 at their home show in Achleiten in June 2010. That was the last time the pair appeared in the competition ring.

Four years later Salieri resurfaced on the scene with Austrian Katharina Wunschek, who first rode the Medium Tour at the 2014 CDI Achleiten and then moved up to senior Grand Prix three months later at the CDI Ebreichsdorf. The new duo finished fourth at the 2014 Austrian Grand Prix Championships, but only did two CDI's in 2014, two in 2015 (Stadl Paura, Achleiten) and one show in 2016, the CDI Lipica in May, where they scored 64.420% in the Grand Prix and 66.229% in the Special.

On 12 June 2016 Salieri suffered a serious colic attack and was immediately transported to the equine clinic where was operated on. Unfortunately the horse developed complications and had to be euthanized.

Katharina Wunschek on Salieri OLD

"He fought for more than 4 days," Wunschek told Eurodressage. "Finally when he started to get a multiple organ failure, I had to make the decision. On the one hand everything ended way too fast but on the other hand these four days maybe have been the longest in our lives."

Wunschek had planned on retiring the 18-year old Salieri from sport after the 2016 Austrian Dressage Championships, but it was not meant to be.

"He just found his mental balance and was so concentrated in Lipica, like he never was before in a competition with me. I planned to retire him in October after the Austrian championchip. I would have loved to see him gallop around with my other pensioners."