French Team Horse Amorak Passed Away

Dressage

France

Stephanie Brieussel's career-making Grand Prix horse Amorak has passed away. He was 20 years old.

Amorak was a Dutch warmblood gelding by Special D out of Serena (by Inspekteur x Nimmerdor). He was bred by R. Nout in The Netherlands.

Wedding Gift

The bay gelding arrived in Stephanie's stable in 2010 when the horse was five. Stephanie's father bought the horse as a wedding gift for Dominique and Stephanie (née Collier). His daughter has just tragically lost horse Werner and had to retire Twister prematurely.

The very energetic youngster was offered for sale a year later, but nobody wanted to buy him, so he stayed. By 2013 Amorak reached small tour level and made his international show debut at the CDI Vierzon, where he won the Intermediaire I and Inter I Freestyle. Two weeks later in Deauville he reconfirmed the same upper sixty scores.

Team trainer Jan Bemelmans spotted Amorak in a clinic and convinced Brieussel to continue with him. They were schooling the Grand Prix and the horse was submitted to the Olympic hopeful (JO/JEM) squad with the 2016 Rio Olympics as goal.

In 2014 the pair made its international Grand Prix debut at the CDI Vidauban, but got eliminated. Their second try in the Grand Prix the next day was better and they were fourth with 68.760%. They gained mileage that year in Saumur, Compiegne and Mechelen.

French Team Horse

In 2015 they tried for the team for the European Championships and competed in the Nations Cup in Vidaudan and Rotterdam, as well as in Hagen, Saumur and Wiesbaden but fell short of team selection.

In 2016 it was all or nothing and with CDI scores fluctuating between 64 and 68% in Lier, Hagen, Compiegne, Roosendaal and Rotterdam, they made the cut and travelled to the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where they were 55th in the Grand Prix (65.114%)

After Rio, the pair regularly competed at big events in Amsterdam, Dortmund, Den Bosch, Keysoe, Compiegne, Roosendaal, Rotterdam, London, Leudelange, Waregem, Geesteren and Le Mans, and even the 2018 CDIO Aachen, but their results went up and down from 62% rides to 69% for the technical tests.

The first time they hit the seventy marker for the Grand Prix was at the 2019 CDIO Geesteren, right on time for team selection for the 2019 European Dressage Championships in Rotterdam, where they were 41st with 68.758%.

Lyme

In 2020 the pair only did one CDI in Le Mans. Shortly afterwards the corona pandemic broke out. They returned to the national arena in the summer of 2020 but Amorak had lost sparkle. He was diagnosed with Lyme disease.

He was treated and recovered, but upon transport to the national show in Vierzon he had a second Lyme outbreak. In 2021 they returned to the CDI ring in Le Mans in February, where they were 16th in the Grand Prix and retired from the Special. It was their last international as a pair.

Retirement

At the CDI Le Mans Brieussel decided to retire Amorak from sport. By October he was ready for a full retirement to the field and moved to Stephanie's parents' property in Sarthe near Le Mans, France.

Stephanie continued her Grand Prix career on Fellini du Soleil but also has rising Grand Prix horses such as Quaterhit, Don Vito de Hus, Devonport and Koning in the barn, which are rarely or not seen at the CDI level.

Dressprod reported that on 14 August 2025 the gelding was put to sleep as the horse struggled too much with his breathing in the hot summer days.