A true serial winner has been named Holsteiner of the Month for June: Ride Smart Never Walk Alone by Numer Uno-Mytens xx-Ahorn-Calypso I. The eleven-year-old gelding won several major show jumping competitions in May. In Mannheim and Redefin, he won three times in the space of a few days with Richard Vogel in the saddle. The highlight of this winning streak was undoubtedly his triumph in the Redefin Grand Prix – which also served as the second leg of the Bemer Riders Tour.

Never Walk Alone was born at Casper von Rumohr’s stud (Timmendorf). At the end of his third year, the son of Numero Uno joined the stables of Gerald Nothdurft in southern Lower Saxony, who, incidentally, had also discovered and trained May’s Holsteiner of the Month, H&M Chilli Willi. Nothdurft developed this outstanding show jumper from line 7216 – his great-granddam is the dam of the licensed stallions Acord I and II – up to advanced level and competed with him at the age of nine in the German Show Jumping Derby in Klein Flottbek. During that show jumping round, Nothdurft suffered a tear to his adductor muscles, forcing the pair to withdraw. “It was clear that I would be out of action for quite some time with this injury, so I sent Never Walk Alone to David Will in the summer of 2019,” recalls his owner. Will and the Holsteiner quickly achieved remarkable success, including victories in the Grand Prix events at Wilkow (POL) and Hicktead (GBR) at *** and ***** level. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, 2020 was a rather quiet year for the pair. In January 2021, the Holsteiner competed for the first time under Richard Vogel, who trains alongside David Will at the Dagobertshausen equestrian centre near Marburg. And the new pair hit it off straight away. They had already left the competition trailing at the Sunshine Tour in Spain, before proving unbeatable first in Mannheim and then in Redefin.

Photo: Stefan Lafrentz