A true legend, that’s how Peder Fredricson described H&M All In, who ended his sporting career with a farewell ceremony from competitions last February in Gothenburg. Thus ends the All In era. How beautiful to see horses retire from competitions when the time has come to end their careers in style, perhaps still in shape but with the ailments of age and a long competitive past.
It is not easy for a rider to make the decision to retire his partner in competitions, in life, in daily emotions, but this is also part of being a horseman, understanding when it is time to say enough even when the horses still show a great desire to do, to be protagonists. How much emotion in the farewell ceremonies of great champions. We saw it with Nick Skelton at the retirement of Big Star, Henrik von Eckermann at the retirement of Mary Lou, Luciana Diniz with Winningmood, Kevin Staut with Reveur de Hurtebise, Giulia Martinengo Marquet and Athletica, Rolf-Göran Bengtsson and Casall, Marcus Ehning with Plot Blue and Comme il Faut, Martin Fuchs and Clooney, Michael Jung and Sam, Isabell Werth and Bella Rose… and countless others that would take pages and pages to publish them all.
But the emotion is no less, the value is no less, when you decide to retire a companion of walks, of daily life with whom we have shared years of pure fun, of passion. The horses that fill the stables all over the world, the school horses, the ponies with which children grow up… All horses, whoever they are, of any size, breed, origin, use are champions in the same way and deserve their own ‘retirement ceremony’ for a worthy retirement. They are our Superheroes.
In these pages, the retirement of H&M All In and Gazelle and the farewell to Shutterfly who, instead, entered Eden, among the horses who have written the history of our sport.
