What a year!

At the end of 2017 it’s the ideal moment to look back at what has been a fantastic year for Sterrehof Stud! Maybe it was typical that the first show directly brought success. Marc and Sterrehof’s Calimero won the Grand Prix of the CSI Drachten while Julia and Sterrehof’s Cayetano Z became fourth. These results were a prelude of what was to come and all of this in the year of the tenth anniversary of Sterrehof Stud.

Shortly after Drachten it was time for Jumping Amsterdam, one of the shows we support as we also did in 2017. Right before the start of this event we launched our completely new website. This update of our main online channel makes it possible to digitally present our vision and the horses at an informative and appealing way.

Gold medal

In March a strong indoor season finished in style at Indoor Brabant and also in the open air the successes continued. During the Dutch Championships in Mierlo Marc grabbed the gold medal with Calimero and finished fourth with Sterrehof’s Baccarat.

At the end of May we celebrated our tenth anniversary by organising an own event at our premises. During this show for amateur riders the competitors could qualify themselves for the Sterrehof Stud Trophy at Outdoor Gelderland, the international show which we have already supported for many years.

Highlight

One of the biggest successes -according to Marc even the highlight of 2017- followed in July when our top duo was able to finish third in the very prestigious and historical Grand Prix of Aachen. Marc and Calimero accomplished this shortly after they also had managed to take third place in the main competition of the CHIO Rotterdam.

All this was enough to secure a spot in the Dutch team for the European Championships in Gothenburg. On top of that Julia and Cayetano Z had too been selected to defend the colours of Julia’s home nation Austria. The final rehearsal for Gothenburg gave us a déjà vu. Like in Drachten Marc and Calimero won in Ommen the Grand Prix, while Julia and Cayetano finished shortly behind them.
During the Europeans the results were varying but didn’t bring us the success we had hoped for. Revanche followed at the FEI Nations Cup Final in Barcelona where Marc and Calimero took first place as being part of the victorious Dutch team. It meant the icing on the cake of a very special season!

The youngsters

Also during the first half of the 2017/2018 indoor season some great results were scored by our horses.
Promising last year were also the performances of our rising international stars, like Dante, Edinus and Eddie Blue. And as we always look forward it was for sure pleasant to see the development of our youngest show horses that are just at the beginning of their careers. Behind these talents we mustn’t forget the potency of the horses that are shortly or not yet under the saddle and of course of the 2017 crop.

Altogether enough reasons to be very happy about this year and to look with expectations towards 2018. Like we did twelve months ago we will start at the CSI Drachten and continue the year at Jumping Amsterdam, where Sterrehof Stud will once more be one of the supporting parties.