Friday, February 4, 2011

Michael and Sam -- A Happy Ending...


The German Federation has announced that they have purchased a majority share of the WEG 2010 Gold medal winning horse La Biosthetique Sam from Sabene Kreuter.  Kreuter has been shopping the top ranking gelding  since before WEG 2010.  Although Sam has resided in rider Michael Jung's barn throughout their collaboration, Sabine Kreuter recently announced plans to move the horse to her own yard, we guess, to facilitate the selling process. This had to be a pretty dismal prospect for the Jungs.

Although Kreuter had made a gift of 40% of Sam to the Jungs, and stated that a condition of sale would be for Jung to keep the ride on the horse, things seemed to be falling apart for Jung.

In December, the German Federation Veterinarians, reportedly unbeknownst to Kreuter, conducted a pre-purchase exam in which they said they detected a slight heart murmur.   Kreuter stated that this was an authorized exam and that the horse was still the best in the world. However, publicly this finding seemed to grind the whole purchase proceedings, at least with the German Federation, to a hault.

However, now it appears that the talks continued under the radar. The German Federation felt it was imperative to their high performance program for the horse to remain in the capable hands of Michael Jung.  On Friday they swallowed the bait and paid up. Now the outstanding pair of Mike and Sam will stay together -- a good result in my opinion.

Congratulations to Michael Jung and the entire German Equestrian community on doing the right thing! In our opinion it rocks!

But what about Peter Adkins and Henny? Will the Australian Federation step in there?