In recent weeks you read on Hippomundo about the World Championships of 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. This showed that many horses find their way to the international (top) sport via the World Championships. But how easy is it as a rider to know how good your horse is? Hippomundo spoke to Gregory Wathelet:
Last year Gregory Wathelet became Belgian Champion of the 7-year-old horses; one week later he won team gold at the European Showjumping Championship in Rotterdam. That alone is admirable, but how can you combine a European Championship and a Belgian Championship in your planning? “I think it is important to feel the horses effectively, to work with them and thus to further train them to hopefully GP level, so I like to make time for the BC Young Horses,” Wathelet explains.
Still at that age it remains difficult to estimate whether you are jumping a future GP horse or not, even for someone with the experience of Wathelet. “Even at the age of 7 it is indeed difficult to say effectively whether a horse will be able to jump a GP or not. Everyone dreams and hopes for that real winner and at the age of 7 you can already feel much more than when they are 5 or 6 years old. But the most important thing is the attitude of a horse. Of course they have to have quality, but what they can jump effectively depends on their mindset. MJT Nevados, for example, became world champion as a 7-year-old, but at the time I was not convinced whether he had the last scope to jump a really big class. And last year we were 4 years further and he earns team gold at the European Championship.” (laughs).