King Edward amazed again last week in Omaha, but the real super star, was without a doubt Yuri Mansur his Vitiki. After a major injury at the CHIO in Aachen in 2018, the combination managed to jump to a top ranking in the overall standing.
"2018 was an enormously difficult year for me," Mansur says. "I remember when we considered to euthanize Vitiki. Luckily we didn't and we kept believing in him ..."
Long revalidation
"Although Vitiki has a lot of blood, he is also clever. To recover he needed to be calm and he actually did. We had to undergo a long traject for revalidation. After the surgery in 2018, he was stabled for one month and after we had to walk him at the hand. Shortly after I decided to walk him under the saddle."
"We had a fall back, but luckily Vitiki managed to conquer it and we were back on track." Mansur continues.
"In 2019 we took our first jumps, after it took us to the end of 2020 to compete our first small Grand Prix. Of course Vitiki didn't feel the same, he felt different, but that is a part of the proces." Mansur adds. Still the bad luck didn't end there as in 2021 Vitiki had to undergo suregery again, this time for a cyst in his nose.
Just until October 2021 the pair was able to take a new start and work further on its comeback. In all this time Vitiki didn't manage to work on his muscle mass and technique, just was busy recovering from the different surgeries.
I almost had to cancel Omaha
A couple of days before the FEI World Cup finals in Omaha Vitiki rolled in his stall and touched his nose with his elbow. "I said to my wife, we had to cancel our participation to the FEI World Cup finals. However, Vitiki is a real fighter with a lot of ambition and decided otherwise."
