It was a strong and successful team: Richard Vogel and the 11-year-old gelding Darius de Kezeg Z (by Darco). The pair won a 1.50m main class in Wellington in January. They collected multiple placings in Mexico and won at the Hof Waterkant competition in Hamburg. Now the dream team is breaking up. In the future, the gelding will be the teacher of a 15-year-old rider who fell in love with him during the competition in Wellington.
Kevin Murphy, who together with his partner Andrea Sigrist owns Murphy, Darius and many other horses owned by Richard Vogel, tells Springreiter.de the whole story: "We discovered Darius when he was 4 years old, we even had to buy another horse from him because otherwise we wouldn't have gotten him, but we were so convinced of him even then that we accepted this offer. From his first entry into the arena, he did everything incredibly well, he was a natural. That's how he quickly got the nickname of teacher."
"He gave us and his riders a lot of pleasure for years and it was not at all our intention to sell him, but here in Wellington a 15-year-old girl and the rest of her family fell in love with Darius and made us several offers," Andrea continued. "However, this was not the first time someone wanted to buy our 'little fat guy', as he was also affectionately called," she adds.
"With Richi we have a young and talented rider on our side and we want to make the step up to 5* competition with him. Darius has already proven several times that he can do this, but we give Richi credit for being very realistic despite his ambition and for deciding together with us that Darius is a horse that can do this, but not every week, because then he would lose the fun in the long run," explains Andrea.
"So of course it's a dream job for him to be the 'teacher' of a 15-year-old girl and slowly introduce her to more difficult classes. We are very happy to have found such a good home for him and are now looking for a horse that, like Darius, will fit into our team of very talented horses," Andrea concludes.
Source: Spring-Reiter