Astrid Neumayer's Career Making Rodriguez Passed Away

Dressage

Austria

Austrian Grand Prix rider Astrid Neumayer had to say goodbye to her career making big tour horse Rodriguez. He was 23 years old.

Rodriguez was a Brandenburger bred stallin by Rubinstern Noir out of Gundi (by Gaspari II x Grandelstein x Kolibri). He was bred by Günter Jakobs.

Licensed Stallion

The dark bay started his career in Germany as a young breeding stallion. He was approved for the ZfDp and Bavaria.

He did his 30-day stallion performance test in Munich-Riem in October 2004 and scored a total of 8.53 points.

The German FN has no offspring recorded in its database though.

Move to Austria

Rodriguez made his career in sport under Austrian Astrid Neumayer. He was her first Grand Prix horse, after Calogero and Everglade that put her on the Austrian team.

Pferderevue.at wrote that owner Julian Spieleder put the 11-year old stallion in training with Neumayer and not only matched him with Astrid's dream coach at the time, Ulla Salzgeber, but Julian also became Astrid's life partner.

The pair made a rocky international show debut at Grand Prix level at the 2013 CDI Achleiten with a 58.340% Gran,d Prix score, but from there the scores only went up and they gathered much experience that years at CDI's in San Giovanni, Fritzens, Verden, Donaueschingen, and Oldenburg.

Austrian Team Horse

At the 2017 European Championships in Gothenburg

In 2015 they campaigned in Graz, Dortmund, Stadl Paura, Hagen, Achleiten, Fritzens and Cappeln to be nominated on the Austrian team for the 2015 European Championships in Aachen, where they were 36th in the Grand Prix (69.386%)

In 2016 they won the CDI in Cappeln, but Austria had not qualified a team for the Rio Olympics and only Victoria Max-Theurer went as individual with Della Cavalleria.

Neumayer and Rodriguez were back on Team Austria for the 2017 European Championships in Gothenburg, where they finished 36th in the Grand Prix with 57.071%.

In 2018 the Austrian federation upset its Grand Prix riders by deciding not to send a team to the 2018 World Equestrian Games, so Neumayer and her 18-year old Rodriguez ended their sport career at the CDI Cappeln in August 2018 with a 69.587% in the Grand Prix and 71.000% in the Special.

The pair won triple silver and bronze at Austrian Championships between 2013 and 2018.

Retirement

Rodriguez was retired from sport after winning silver at the 2018 Austrian Championships.

He spent the rest of his life at Neumayer's stable Pramwaldhof in Austria.

Neumayer's announced the passing of "Rodi" on Facebook on 18 August. "Like always you fought till the end," she wrote.