Dressage-News

ERMELO, Netherlands, Sept. 20, 2020–Glock’s Toto Jr. was ridden by Edward Gal to Dutch Championship gold Sunday with a victory in the Grand Prix Freestyle in performances the rider declared may be better than his world-beating father, Totilas, a decade ago.

Edward and the nine-year old Hanoverian stallion (Totilas x Desperados FRH) scored 86.150% for the freestyle a day after capturing the Grand Prix Special on a score of 80.681% to dominate these championships just just two months after Edward debuted Toto at Grand Prix in a national event in Holland.

This was the 50-year-old rider’s 11th national championship title.

Hans Peter Minderhoud, Edward’s partner and stable mate, took silver on Glock’s Dream Boy on 82.525%, slightly below the duo’s international best of 82.780% set in Amsterdam in January, two months before the coronavirus pandemic triggered lockdowns around the world. The pair were on the Netherlands’ team at the 2018 World Equestrian Games in Tryon and the 2019 European Championships.

Emmelie Scholtens on Desperado placed third on 81.400% in the Freestyle to earn bronze, to pull slightly ahead of Marlies van Baalen on Ben Johnson in the total of scores from the Special and the Freestyle.

Toto is the first licensed son of Totilas that in 15 months of 25 victories in a total of Big Tour starts ridden by Edward Gal became an international celebrity beyond the equestrian to rank No. 1, set record scores, was a World Cup champion and by far the leading partnership to take all three gold medals at the 2010 World Equestrian Games in Kentucky. Totilas was sold to Germany immediately after the World Games.

Desperados, the damsire, was also a world No. 1 horse competed by Germany’s Kristina Bröring-Sprehe for Olympic team gold and individual bronze in 2016, team silver in 2012, World Equestrian Games team gold in 2014 and multiple European Championships medals.

“He is perhaps even better than his father Totilas,” the 50-year-old rider said of Toto that he has not yet competed in an international event.

Speculation was widespread that Toto would be Edward’s mount for the Olympics in Tokyo next July–the Dutch Internet site horses.nl trumpeting: “A Star is Born.”

Scores in the national competitions for Edward and Toto are significantly higher in the Grand Prix and the Special than Glock’s Zonik, that was Edward’s main Netherlands’ team mount but was withdrawn from these championships. The highest CDI scores for Edward and Zonik were below 79% in the Grand Prix and the Special, and a high of 85.385% in the freestyle.

Results:

Grand Prix Freestyle