The Royal Horse Show at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto was an egg-cellent outing (sorry) for Rottenegg, a three-year-old Hanoverian filly that captured wins in both the Governor General’s and Lieutenant Governor’s Cup classes. Each class had 21 entries and was judged by U.S. judges Oliver Brown and Susan Graham.
Rottenegg, known around the barn as Leggo, was bred and is owned by Amy West of Ontario Elite Hunter Sales in Millbrook in central-eastern Ontario, and joins the exclusive club of double Cup winners at the most prestigious competition in the country for Canadian-bred three-year-old sport horses. The flashy chestnut with four white legs is by Rotspon and out of De Lorean, by Domiro.
The Cup wins are a pinnacle achievement for her breeder, who suffered multiple fractures and a severe brain injury in a devastating car accident in January, 2011. Despite losing her ability to speak and other challenges from those injuries, Amy has determinedly continued to breed quality hunters at her small farm.
Another West-bred horse, Evening Attire, a 2021 Canadian Sport Horse gelding (Escapade/Westporte) owned by Tori Brick, placed eighth under saddle in the Lieutenant Governor’s Cup. He won his three-year-old colt/gelding class, was Senior Champion colt/gelding, and Reserve Grand Champion at the Canadian Sport Horse show at the Royal. Amy’s yearling filly, Play for Keeps (Popeye K/Westporte) won her CSH yearling filly class and was Junior Champion Filly.
Leggo’s line career continues her equine family’s tradition. Her dam, De Lorean, also competed in the Cups, as did her half-sister by Sir Wanabi. Both of those mares are now OEHS broodmares.
Leggo and Cameron Edwards during the ridden phase of the Lieutenant Governor’s class. (Madeline Ball Photography)
Theresa Detsikas of Rabbit Hill Training and Sales, OEHS’s primary trainer and handler of young stock since 2011, handled Leggo in the Governor General’s Cup, while her Rabbit Hill partner, Cameron Edwards, rode her in the Lieutenant Governor’s class.
“Leggo was a Covid foal and Amy loved her from the beginning,” says Theresa. “She messaged me when she was born and said ‘you have to come see this horse, this one is special.’” As for her unusual registered name, pronounced Rotten Egg? “Amy finds it humourous to create the funniest names to announce while I have her horses in the ring.” Other OEHS Cup horses Amy has bestowed with unusual names for Theresa to train and handle include include Harmonica (by Harvard) and Salamander (by Sir Wanabi).
“Amy bought quite a lot of Rotspon semen and it’s been a good match with De Lorean. The mare is so reliable, so easy to catch,” says Theresa. “Rotspon is unreliable in size, but not in the quality of his offspring. Leggo is very similar in substance to the mare, is taller, and has the stallion’s more natural upright carriage. He improved the foal as we had hoped, but her dam is a great mare. She has Escudo I through the dam line, and has been an excellent broodmare for us.”
Amy and Theresa debated taking Leggo to Devon as a two-year-old, but decided to instead concentrate on prepping her for the Cup classes this spring. She moved to Pause Awhile Equestrian in April, where Theresa’s training business is based, after never being off property prior to then. She was started with 30 days plus of groundwork before being slowly started under saddle and worked four days a week. The mare soon demonstrated she was living up to the early promise her breeder felt she had.
“It’s a fine balance, making sure they are prepared, by not over-prepared,” says Detsikas.
Play for Keeps will likely be OEHS’s next Cup prospect in 2026, and Leggo’s full brother Rooster, owned in partnership between Amy and Theresa, in 2027.
Second in the Governor General’s Cup was Canadian Sport Horse mare Merci Beauqueue (Beau Balou/Queue De Quastor), bred and owned by Sprucehaven Farm/ Linda Plank of Ingersoll, Ontario. Runner-up in the Lieutenant Governor’s Cup was Requested RWC (Popeye K/First Tri), bred by Elisha Massong and owned by Jane and Robert Clark.
The Pony Cup classes, held as a pilot program last year, returned to the Royal where the top-scoring Canadian-bred three-year-old ponies from two qualifiers vied for honours. Winner of the in-hand class of 11 ponies was Beaverwood’s Trident, a grey half-Welsh gelding bred by Kirsten Brunner of Beaverwood Farm in Erin, Ontario and owned by Tess Waxman. The gelding was trained and shown by Robin Hannah Carlton. In the under-saddle class with 12 ponies, winner was SLS Shooting Star (Starry Night/Sriracha), a bay half-Welsh bred by Sandra Laprise, owned by Lorna Lesser, trained by Shara Pavan and shown by Cydney Pavan.
