Proud to announce that I’ve sold half of my homebred Player WS (Pegase van ’t Ruytershof x Ustinov)! Co-owner is now Rinus Blom, very well-known in the Dutch equestrian scenes. He has been horse owner and investor for many years. He was also the one who gave my ‘jumping career’ a huge impuls and always supported me.
When I was 26 I decided I want to learn showjumping. As a dressage rider I jumped some 1.00m courses, but that was already difficult for me. I had no eye for the distances at all and while my first young jumpers knew all dressage exercises, as soon as I started jumping I lost all control immediately. No way I wanted to jump 1.10m courses!
Anyway, fast forward: It was 2009 when Mandy Hendriks (secretary at the shows of @psclichtenvoorde) gave me her 4-year-old Alina (Tangelo van de Zuuthoeve) to ride. I was 29. We started at 80cm, won several young horse classes and she jumped in the spotlights of many horse scouts.
Do you know what happened then?
Rinus Blom bought her as a 5-year-old for me to ride! Two years later, we jumped our first 1.40m GP’s (she was only 7) and we did a few international shows in the Netherlands.
We won the provincial indoor championships in 2014 and that was one of our last bigger victories (I was pregnant of Milan at that time). We decided it was the moment for Alina to move on and we sold her to a professional German rider, who won many classes with her up to 1.50m level.
I’ve ridden several other horses for Rinus Blom since, but the last one is some time ago.
With this renewed partnership we hope to enjoy many more beautiful moments. It’s my task to take the time to develop Player WS as well as possible. We hope to see him move on to an amazing rider in future when he is a bit older and more experienced.