Dan Watson's Butterfly Passed Away

Dressage

Great Britain

Horse & Hound reported that British professional dressage rider Dan Watson said goodbye to his internationally competed small tour horse Butterfly.

The 18-year old British Hanoverian mare was by Breitling W out of Daisy (by Dimaggio x Donnerhall ).

Home Bred

Butterfly was home bred by Watson, who also bred full brother Berlin, currently competed at international Grand Prix level, as well as the KWPN registered half-brother I Love You (by Johnson), who was renamed Invictus and presented at the 2016 KWPN stallion licensing but not accepted.

Dan sold Butterfly as a foal to client Barbie Marceau, who kept the mare in training with Dan for her entire career.

Sport Career

Dan debuted the mare in the U.K. in 2012 when she was four years old.

Her international show debut followed in 2013 in the 5-year old young horse classes at the CDI Vidauban, but the results ended up not being recorded by the FEI. Watson produced her up the levels and reached Prix St Georges in 2016.

The pair returned to the CDI ring in 2017 in Lier for the small tour and she competed at that level through 2018 with CDI starts in Compiegne and Hickstead. They were 13th at the 2017 British Prix St Georges Championships.

In 2020 she made her international Grand Prix debut in Keysoe and campaigned internationally with Dan through 2024 with CDI entries in Wellington Heckfield, Hartpury, Le Mans, Keusoe, Compiegne, Addington and Hartpury. They were 13th in the 2021 British Grand Prix Championships. The CDI Addington in March 2024 was Butterfly's last international.

She went on as a schoolmaster for Primrose Hawker, who showed her briefly at national Elementary level at the start of 2025.

Sad Farewell

“Everything to do with that mare is precious to me," he told Horse & Hound. "She was owned by my ‘second mum’ Barbie; she bought a horse for me years ago when I was 22, who I trained to inter II level, went internationally at small tour and did very well. (...° I was very close to Barbie, as much as I was to Butterfly. Barbie died four years ago from a stroke, so I lost Barbie, then I lost Butterfly. It’s the end of an era in a way.”