Anna-Louisa Fuchs Takes Rodrigos EH From Death's Door to Piaff Forderpreis Qualification

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Eurodressage F.O.C.U.S.

German under 25 rider Anna Louisa Fuchs and her 15-year old Baden Wurttemberger bred Rodigros E.H. recently qualified for the 2017 Piaff Forderpreis show circuit and they are ready to take the 2017 show season by storm after the horse survived a severe colic attack and recovered to great form in almost four months time.

Rodrigos E.H. is bred by Eberhard and Bärbel Höhn and owned by Dominique Garvs. He is by Royal Diamond out of Argentina (by Angriff Anruf x Lombard).

The chestnut gelding began his show career in 2005 under Juliane Höfer. In 2006 Melanie Zingel and Franka Angst showed him before Diana Livingston took over the reins and took him from A to M-level. Under Renate Gohr-Bimmel he went from M-level to Grand Prix between 2009 and 2015.

Rodrigos E.H. In March 2016 Anna Louisa Fuchs partnered with the chestnut. They made their show debut first in one small tour class and two months later at Grand Prix level. In October 2016 Rodrigos suffered from a severe colic attack and was operated on. The horse has made an incredibly speedy recovery, which Fuchs attributes to his temperament.

"The vet said it was good that before the operation he had been in a really good form/condition and that he is a fighter and wanted to live," Fuchs told Eurodressage.

Anna-Louisa was highly invested in her horse's recovery and rehabilitation and spent hours walking the horse, slowly bringing him back to fitness.

"Two weeks after the operation he came home and than we started to hand walk him, I think for about 6 to 8 weeks and also walked him over poles. We walked him quite a lot but always in the indoor not in the walker to really make sure he won't jump around and after some weeks once a day we walked him with side reins," Fuchs explained. "In our barn we have an aquatrainer, so when the scar was almost gone we added walking in the water. After eight weeks we started to ride him in walk for about two weeks and then we slowly started with trot and later with canter."

Anna Fuchs and Rodrigos So only been back in training for a few weeks, Fuchs and Rodrigos took the chance to compete at the 2017 Piaff Forderpreis training seminar and selection day and were on best form in Warendorf. They produced a top performance at the selection trial and finished 10th with 68.140% in the Short Grand Prix, which qualified them to compete on the 2017 Piaff Forderpreis circuit.

"He did a great job last week in Warendorf but you see that he still misses lots of power, on what we will keep on working," said Fuchs.

The Hirschberg based 22-year old Fuchs is trained by Pieter van der Raadt.