Then maybe his concern is about the horse. I’ve definitely known some horses that would not do well under pre-auction circumstances with multiple test rides by multiple people whether they were la creme de la creme riders or not.
6 Likes
Cant speak for the other horses, but Bohemian has been a difficult horse for several Olympic level riders including Kittle himself. its not hard to imagine that if he is not in demand at the top levels, due to temperament, that selling him to an unknown bidder could be a bad solution for this horse.
6 Likes
And it’s entirely possible the horse will no sale, especially if there is a high reserve.
But it’s up to the owner. The only way to prevent that owner from selling to whomever the owner chooses is to buy the horse. It’s bad form to basically imply that the owner doesn’t care about where the horse goes - especially if it’s at least partially been your job to sell said horse.
8 Likes
Wasn’t Bohemian the one that did a hard stop with Cathrine Dufour at some big CDI? IIRC, she had to withdraw because she couldn’t get him to go around the outside of the ring prior to their test - he just kept balking, whirling, etc.
2 Likes
Yes, i believe she had issues on more than one occasion…Also the current owner had issues.
Not knowing the horse personally, but having seen some videos of the misbehavior, he seems both spooky and quite reactive, hard to keep his brain on the job.
1 Like
Yes that’s true. Can’t imagine that Kittle thinks this one is an Olympic prospect, he’s too unpredictable/inconsistent to be a good team horse, no matter what the talent. So hard to know what the motivation is…
1 Like
Kittel concerned about that? He runs a sales barn, so that’s a bit hard to believe. And he’s got a reputation for being not only incredibly dishonest but for some very unfriendly training methods as well. So sorry…I don’t buy it.
4 Likes
I was unaware of those factors. Put my previous reply under “hypothetical” and “not related to this particular scenario.”
3 Likes
They have openly stated their goal in the sale of the horses is to publicly disclose the price to prevent someone from marking up the price and pocketing the difference.
Price on Bohemian is $1.5m euro.
Frankly, surprising that Kittel cannot purchase the horse given that his wife’s family owns all her grand prix horses and horses for several others, if it were that important to him. But their public relationship has always read as if his wife is his client, so maybe he cannot call on her bank account for such things.
5 Likes
