British team stalwart Opposition Buzz has been stepped down from top-level competition.
His owner Rosemary Search and rider Nicola Wilson have decided that 17-year old “Dodi” will not go to Badminton and will be campaigned at advanced and CIC 3* this season.
“He would love to go to Badminton and he is fit and well,” Nicola told H&H. “But he is such a special horse and he has given us so much we would hate for anything to happen to him.
“He still loves his eventing, especially his cross-country and hopefully he can still play and have a lot of fun.”
Dodi had his first run of the season in the advanced at Burgham last weekend (29 March) finishing 2nd with his customary clear cross-country.
“That was his first run of the season and he galloped around and made us all smile,” Nicola said. “It is always a difficult decision but he has taken us all over the world and to places that we only could have dreamt.”
Don’t miss next week’s Horse & Hound magazine (10 April), where Nicola and Dodi are the first ‘Great Partnership‘ to feature in our exciting new series focusing on brilliant horse and rider combinations of the current era.
Watch Lucinda Green riding Opposition Buzz in 2011