Based out of Ludger Beerbaum’s training centre in Riesenbeck, Germany, Ben Asselin arrived with a string of six horses: the 10-year-old stallion Veyron, nine-year-old gelding Cool Feeling, 10-year-old mare Wahrhaftige CR, and three young horses – Clockwise (seven); Livestream 2 (six), and Lookout (eight).
Horse Sport caught up with Asselin on his way to the Dortmund CSI4* to talk about his life in the heart of the European show circuit.
“It actually came about in the summer series last year,” he explained of his reason for the move. “Philipp [Weishaupt] came to Spruce – Ludger had sent him there to compete. (Weishaupt won the Rolex Grand Prix of Aachen last summer and is one of Beerbaum’s riders.) I was kind of looking to do something in Europe and Philipp said ‘why don’t you come and base out of our stable and do a bit of training?’ ”
Beerbaum’s setup is central to the burgeoning competition scene, one of the biggest draws of being located there. “He’s had his stable for a very long time and just built a show facility [Riesenbeck International] just five minutes from the training stable,” said Asselin. “It’s a beautiful big indoor venue; they run quite a few day shows every second week for national people to get their horses some experience in the ring. They also run a couple of international shows each year as well.
“I have my good stallion here, and had some good success with him last year,” he continued. “Cool Feeling [Coolio] is a really promising horse. I’ve had him since he was seven and he’s just turned nine. Now he’s just at the stage where he’s ready to do some bigger things. I was pretty cautious with him as a seven- and eight-year-old; we did a few 1.45s and I took my time with him. Now he’s really starting to step up to the plate. He’s going to be my grand prix horse hopefully this week.”
Asselin and Coolio’s weekend in Dortmund was quite successful – they placed 11th in a 1.50m class of 59 entries, and 4th and 10th in a pair of U25 classes. To date in 2017 Asselin has also earned top-10 finishes with Veyron (7th at Drahten CSI3*), Wahrhaftige (“Trudy”, 9th at Kronenberg CSI2*); and Coolio (5th at Offenburg CSI3*).
In some ways the ultra-competitive European circuit is worlds apart from its North American counterparts. “There are lots of differences,” said Asselin. “I’d say that one of the main benefits of being here is that the shows are so close. You base somewhere in Europe and there’s always a show around you; you drive three hours west or north. There are so many shows and the sport is so big here. It’s a lot easier to move around, whereas in North America, if you want to go to Florida it’s a 65-hour drive; if you want to go to Thunderbird it’s a 12-hour drive.
“We have fantastic shows in North America, but demographically it’s much different. For young horses it’s really great here, because they can go to new facilities week in and week out. They get a lot more experience seeing different venues and different jumps.”
Asselin’s long-term plans are a bit up in the air. “I think both Philipp and I are going back to Spruce Meadows for the summer tour in June and July. I definitely want to do the Masters, but if I take a couple of horses to shows in Europe before then or leave a couple in Calgary is not totally set in stone yet. I for sure see myself going back to Europe at some point.”
He concluded, “The Europeans really have a good system of developing young horses. My roots kind of started in the European system with Spruce Meadows. Their riding master, Albert Kley, came over from Germany and he was my first trainer. Then I trained with my dad [Jonathan]; we all thought it would be a good experience to immerse ourselves in the system. Then I think you have to develop your own system, taking things from everybody, really, to create something of your own. You never stop learning.”
