A European champion is the Holsteiner of the Month this time, more precisely Carlitos Quidditch K by Quiwi Dream-Cassini I, bred by Miriam Kühl from Broderstorf. The large-framed grey from stem 6082 also grew up there, until Miriam Kühl asked her friend Malin Hansen-Hotopp to train him in order to subsequently market Carlitos Quidditch. "Miriam had to persuade me a bit, as back then I had little capacity and not that much desire to train a horse and then sell it on again," Malin Hansen-Hotopp recalls today.

At first, the Holsteiner was cheeky, bucked a lot – but his jumping was super right from the start. "He has always made a great jump. And my top horse at the time unfortunately often made mistakes in the course, so Quidditch's jumping in particular motivated me to continue training him," says his rider. When Quidditch was six years old, Malin Hansen-Hotopp had to take a break for health reasons, and so Malin Petersen stepped in and contested several competitions with him. The following year, however, Hansen-Hotopp got back into the saddle, and the two carefully grew into a world-class pair.

"As a seven-year-old, he already stood out tremendously. And then things continued like something out of a storybook. As a nine-year-old, we were allowed to compete in Aachen and made it onto the longlist for the World Championships. A year later we were already winning a four-star class, and in 2023 we managed to win the team silver medal at the European Championships in Haras du Pin," Malin Hansen-Hotopp summarises. As the highlights of their joint individual career so far, the rider counts fourth place in the five-star eventing at Kentucky. The gold medal with the German team at the recent European Championships in Blenheim crowns the career of the two so far. And what comes next? Carlitos Quidditch is 13 this year – the World Championships in Aachen 2026 on home soil are the goal.

Photo: Stefan Lafrentz