Hope Cooper's Career-Starting Don Diamond Retired from Sport

Dressage

U.S.A.

American young Grand Prix rider Hope Cooper has retired her career-starting horse, Don Diamond, from sport.

Don Diamond is a 17-year old Oldenburg gelding by Don Gregory out of Reine Seide (by Rohdiamant). He is bred by C. Crone Münzebrock.

German Start

The dark bay gelding was first competed as a 4-year old by Christine Struckmann in Germany in 2009.

She produced him up to M-level and showed him at regional events through 2012.

Don Diamond was sourced by Viola Abrahams for American Jane Karol from Concord, Mass.

American Youth Riders Horse

Karol allocated the ride on Don Diamond to her junior riders' daughter Hope Cooper.

She qualified him straight away for Region 8 at the 2013 North American Junior Riders Championships, where they were 15th in the individual test and 8th in the Kur to Music. They were 7th at the 2013 U.S. Junior Riders Championships.

A year later the 18-year old Cooper moved to young riders level with the 8-year old Don Diamond and competed at the 2014 North American Young Riders Championships, where they scored team bronze, individual test bronze and were 15th in the freestyle finals.

Jump to Grand Prix

A metabolic issue kept Don Diamond from the show ring for a while, but at home he worked towards Grand Prix. In 2017 they rode one medium tour level CDI in Saugerties and by 2019 they made their international debut at Under 25 Grand Prix level.

Cooper and Don Diamond competed in the U25 classes at the Global Dressage Festival in Wellington from 2019 through 2021. Their last CDI start was in April 2021, when they won the Inter II and short Grand Prix with seventy percentage scores.

In the summer of 2021 Cooper was in Europe with Don Diamond training with Isabell Werth and Christoph Koschel.

Retirement from Sport

"With a heavy heart but so much gratitude I’ve made the really difficult decision to retire my dance partner of 10 years Don Diamond," Cooper took to Facebook. "As many of you know we have had a lot of bumps along the way, from metabolic issues that almost required me to retire Diamond at a young age to the normal bumps along to road to Grand Prix. We truly went from learning flying changes together to doing the GP. I’m super proud of my team who have managed Diamond - who is not such an easy keeper- over the past years so well that he can now retire as an extremely sound and energized GP horse."

Don Diamond has been sent to Melissa Cool's yard in Tennessee, where he is retired to the field for hopefully a long pensioner's life.