Anemia in Dutch Grand Prix Sport? No Dressage Horses in NOP Programme

Dressage

The Netherlands

Last weekend the NOP Foundation announced a new addition to its sponsorship programme. Remarkably, not a single Grand Prix horse is listed.

The three that were listed have stepped out of the programme and no new Grand Prix horses have been added.

NOP

The NOP Foundation provides financial support to the owners of the horses that have Team NL potential to prevent these horses from being sold. The NOP foundation is chaired by Hidde Frankena and has Andre Cats, Emile Hendrix, Joyce van Rooijen - Heuitink and Bram de Feijter as board members.

The project was initiated in the 1980s and carried out through the 1990s. Horses competed with the "Olympic" prefix at that time. The project ended due to lack of funding, but was rekindled in 2013.

The last NOP Grand Prix horses were Hermes (Dinja van Liere), Torveslettens Titanium, and Habibi DVB. All three have dropped their NOP status.

There are still five show jumpers, three para horses, and one eventer listed.

No NOP Grand Prix Horses

With the 2025 outdoor show season just started it is remarkable that NOP was unable to find owners and quality horses for the programme. Futhermore the KWPN society has been the leading producer of Grand Prix horses on the WBFSH Breed Ranking for years.

Dutch Grand Prix rider, judge and NOP board member Joyce Heuitink-van Rooijen told Eurodressage that "of course, we would also like to see some dressage horses with the N.O.P. suffic in the international sport. At the moment, unfortunately, this is not the case. There are several reasons for not having dressage horses under contract. For instance, not all owners have a need for this and of course they are free in this choice. It may also be, for example, that horses cannot (temporarily) show the desired results associated with N.O.P. status for various reasons. In those cases, the owners or the N.O.P. board may choose to change the agreement."

Joyce Heuitink (on the right) judging in Wellington

There are still three NOPT (NOP Talent) listed. This talent programme was launched in 2024 and has Hexagons Luxuriouzz, Kuvasz, and Koko jr de la Fazenda under contract.

"The N.O.P. board is always looking for ways to support the sport. This is why we have introduced the N.O.P.T. for the dressage sport. With this we support young talented horses (and their riders) that we expect to be able to advance to the top of dressage sport in the near future. We also hope to soon welcome dressage horses with N.O.P. behind their name in the top sport."