Hickstead: Mega-Horsepower in a Compact Vehicle

Born on March 2, 1996, he was bred by Jan van Schijndel in the Netherlands and was initially named Opel, the offspring of Hamlet and Jomara, who is by the well-regarded and now deceased stallion Ekstein. His bloodlines feature such prominent stars as his paternal grand-sire Nimmerdor, a successful jumper and prolific sire of top jumpers including Ahorn, VDL Everest and Canadian Colours, who was ridden by Jill Henselwood at the 1995 World Championships; great-grandsire Notaris, great-granddam Ulft, Lucky Boy and Joost. Hickstead, as he was later named, has a full brother named Hickstead II, a 2004 stallion approved by the Zangersheide Studbook who is standing in the Netherlands. Hickstead’s dam, Jomara, has also produced an international eventer (Nieco), and two KWPN-approved stallions.

Hickstead was a few months old when he was purchased by Dutch stallion owner Rinus de Jong, and he eventually ended up with Gerard Franssen whose son, Tim, showed him in 1.30m jumper classes. Dutch team chef d’equipe Rob Ehrens thought that as a six-year-old Hickstead jumped “nicely, but was not spectacular.”

Eric Lamaze first saw Hickstead in Belgium while he was on a European horse-buying trip in 2004. The stallion had been brought to Stephan Conter’s Stephex Stable for Lamaze to try. He recalls their first meeting. “He was a bit wild. I rode him and he felt careful, but a little unrideable, and did not really seem to have that much scope. Then I had one of the Stephex riders get on so I could watch him, and he looked a lot more impressive jumping than he had felt.” At that point, though, Lamaze decided to pass, as had Nick Skelton and Mac Cone, who had tried the stallion before him. “I really did not have a place for him in my program. As a dealing horse he was too expensive, and to be a speed horse for me I thought he was too hot.”

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It turned out to be a slow shopping trip, however, and Conter convinced Lamaze to have another look at the horse, who was now back at his home stable. “We pulled into the farm at ten o’clock at night and tried him in the same arena that they used for breeding. The horse was berserk, but he did jump amazing! I still was not convinced. I got talked into it, to be honest.”

Lamaze shipped Hickstead home to his Torrey Pines Stable in Schomberg, ON. “I had a client in my barn who was interested in buying Hickstead as an investment horse, but I did not sell him because I was not sure how that would work out. Instead, John Fleischhacker (of Ashland Stables) and I bought him together. At that point, I was not sure exactly what Hickstead was, and John wanted to go the long route and see what developed.” Such patience and foresight certainly paid off; the pair began clicking almost immediately, placing third in the $35,000 ATCO Pipelines at the Spruce Meadows National, AB, and fourth in the $20,000 Desjardins Modified Grand Prix at Blainville, QC. Their first major win was in Wellington, FL, the following spring, where they captured the $20,000 1.50m Classic. A number of wins and top-five placings at shows across Canada followed, and people started to sit up and take notice of the small but feisty stallion.

By 2006, Hickstead was a consistent force in the ring, and helped the Canadian Team win the $75,000 CN Nations’ Cup at Wellington. The pair won the crown jewel of Canadian show jumping, the $1,000,000 CN International, at the Spruce Meadows Masters in 2007, having just returned from the Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, where they won the individual bronze and led Canada to team silver. In 2008 they were unstoppable, culminating in individual gold and team silver at the Beijing Olympics. Hickstead was subsequently named FEI Show Jumping Horse of the Year and KWPN Horse of the Year. In 2010, the pair won an individual bronze medal at the World Equestrian Games in Kentucky, and Hickstead was named Best Horse after going clear for all of the final four riders.

At just 16 hands, Hickstead is relatively small in the über-tall show jumping world. “Anyone who comes to see him is shocked at his size,” Lamaze says. “He is so small in his stall that no one recognizes him, because he carries himself so high in the bridle in the ring.”

Hickstead’s ebullient jumping style might look a bit tempestuous at times, but he and Lamaze work in sync. “He is not perfect in the bridle, and often gets strong on course, but his carefulness and desire to do it is beyond any other horse that I have ever ridden,” says Lamaze. “He rarely touches a rail. He is the type of horse that if you are lucky enough to rub a fence in the warm-up, it is a relief because you know it is not going to happen on course. Unless something goes wrong, he is going to jump a clear round. It is like he has eyes in his legs.”

At home, however, Hickstead is a different horse. Lamaze swears he is so quiet that you could put a child on him and hack him around. “He is very quiet when you ride him on the flat, and he is very manageable in the barn. He never bucks; he never expresses himself that way. But he completely changes when he starts to jump.”

Part of the reason Lamaze can control all that power is Hickstead’s bridle. It is equipped with a hackamore/eggbutt snaffle combination with a converter (or delta) that attaches the shanks of the hackamore to the bit and the reins, allowing him to exert direct pressure on either (or both) the snaffle and the hackamore. This prevents the horse from raising his head and hollowing his back. Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum rides Shutterfly in a similar hackamore/snaffle combination, and Brianna Goutal of New York recently won the $100,000 World Cup Grand Prix with Ballade Van Het Indihoff at the Royal Horse Show in a similar bitting configuration. Definitely not a rig for the inexperienced, however!

Hickstead is a humble star in the barn. “He gets a lot of attention, and he knows that he is important,” says Lamaze. “He is not one to go looking for treats, though. He would not come and take a carrot out of your hand.” Delfine Roustan has been Hickstead’s groom since the fall of 2008, and she exercises the stallion whenever Lamaze is unable to. “Many other people – Yann Candele, Marie Hecart – have ridden him at home,” says Lamaze, dispelling the myth that the feisty bay is a one-man horse.

Hickstead was an active breeding stallion in Europe prior to Lamaze purchasing him, and since 2009 his owners have made his frozen semen available to a limited number of mares here in North America at $5,500 (US) a dose. “There is a good five-year-old that I know of, and I have seen some of his other offspring,” said Lamaze of Hickstead’s foals already on the ground in Europe. “The good news is that they are all big, because he is a smaller horse, but his babies are not small by any means. He gives a bit of size, which is nice.”

It would seem a difficult task to juggle Hickstead’s breeding duties with such a busy show schedule. “In Europe, he breeds in between shows,” says Lamaze. The stallion will enjoy a break from the show ring this winter to concentrate on his stud duties for a while when he arrives in Florida.

And will Lamaze breed a nice mare to Hickstead in the hopes of procuring a future champion? “We have a few mares that are retired that we are going to try to breed to him,” he explains. “He already has a baby by a mare that Ashley Fleischhacker (John’s daughter) used to ride. We are also going to be breeding Narcotique de Muze II to him.” Narcotique is the very talented grand prix mare last shown by Eric in 2009; it will be interesting to see if that venerable union will produce another superstar.