Personally it rather leaves a tiny sour taste in the mouth....
It, in a small part, appears that medals are being ‘bought’ rather than the traditional buy them young, put hours/weeks/months/years into schooling them and hope one day you have a championship winner in the yard. Whilst this is nothing new, the trend seems to be increasing.
As much as you can expect these high level transfers, ones at this end of the sport are rare . Mostly I’m guessing due to money, Quarrycrest Echo will not have come cheap - £millions I can only imagine. The supply will also be a factor, there aren’t an abundance of top level horses that people wish to part with.
If you want to make money, Event horses aren’t the typical place to look, very few manage to break even let alone make a notable investment return. So who can blame owners when they have the chance to finally see their investment mature. These chances rarely come along, if ever, so they must be taken.
Team GBR’s loss is most definitely Team Japan’s gain - Red has a fantastic championship record. Whilst I really hope he fulfils his potential for his new Team, there will be a tinge of sadness watching him in Tokyo.
But what success does this move bring, last years big-money transfer of Cooley SRS to Australian rider Hazel Shannon’s yard hasn’t bought the assumed 5* success, with ‘Aero’ an absentee from Adelaide’s big showpiece.
Although the German machine that is Michael Jung did achieve a Silver Individual & Team Gold at the Europeans with Fischer Chipmunk FRH less than 12 months after the horse moved to his yard.
