Top dressage horse owners Sarah and Tony Pidgley have sold all 42 horses at their Kilbees Stud in Windsor to allow Mrs Pidgley to spend time with their young family, the couple has told H&H.
“It’s got nothing to do with the credit crunch or personal finances,” said Mr Pidgley. “My wife is terribly distressed to be losing the horses but she believes that you have either to be in it or not and with two young children she can’t be in it at the level she wants to.”
But he added she will continue judging for British Dressage (BD).
All 42 horses including five top stallions — Grand Passion, who was champion graded stallion at the Trakehner Verband stallion show last October, Diamonit, Beltoni, Donaugold and RosarioSamira, who was grand champion of the 2007 Bundeschampionate have been sold.
Fifteen have gone to private buyers and the rest to Ullrich Kasselmann, who runs the German sport horses sales company Performance Sales International with former show jumper Paul Schockemöhle.
The yard is to be rented out to Marcus Gribbe, who has been Mrs Pidgley’s trainer and stable jockey for the past year.
Read this story in full in the current issue of Horse & Hound (22 January, ’09)
