Dressage-News

July 5, 2021

The Netherlands team of Edward Gal/Total U.S., Hans Peter Minderhoud/Dream Boy and Marlies van Baalen/Go Legend was announced Monday by KNHS, the Dutch federation. Dinja van Liere/Haute Couture was selected as traveling reserve after appeals failed to resolve a clerical error eliminating Hermes from consideration.

The team:

*Edward Gal, 51, and Total US, nine-year-old Hanoverian stallion, owned by Glock HPC NL B.V., and reserve
*Toto Jr., 10-year-old Hanoverian stallion, owned by Glock HPC NL B.V.

*Hans Peter Minderhoud, 47, and Dream Boy, 13-year-old KWPN stallion, owned by Glock HPC NL B.V., Palmar BV, Tim Coomans, Stal Brinkman

*Marlies van Baalen, 40, and Go Legend, 10-year-old KWPN gelding, owned by Jan de Vries & Dressage Stable Van Baalen

Traveling reserve

Dinja van Liere, 30, and Haute Couture, nine-year-old KWPN mare owned by Joop van Uytert & Albert Drost

Non-traveling reserves are Denise Nekemen with Boston Sth and Thamar Zweistra with Hexagon’s Double Dutch.

Edward Gal is an international superstar highlighted by his partnership with the legendary Totilas that was sold without competing in an Olympics. He has been selected this year on the Totilas offspring, Total US and Toto Jr. as a direct reserve.

Tokyo will be Edward’s third Olympics, having earned team bronze on Undercover at the 2012 London Games and on the fourth-placed team with Voice in 2016. At the World Equestrian Games at Kentucky in 2010, Edward and Totilas swept the competition to capture team and two individual gold medals. The pair won the World Cup the same year after team and individual gold at the 2009 European Championships.

Hans Peter with Nadine was on the Dutch silver medal team at the 2008 Olympics and rode Johnson TN on the team at Rio de Janeiro in 2016. He was on the 2010 gold medal team at the Kentucky World Games and team bronze at the 2014 WEG. Hans Peter was World Cup champion on Flirt in 2016, one of seven of the annual global championships in which he has competed. At European Championships, he won team gold in 2007 and 2015, plus individual bronze, team silver in 2013 and 2019 and bronze in 2011.

Marlies van Baalen competed the American-owned Idocus at the 2004 Athens Olympics and has ridden in four World Cup Finals.

Dinja van Liere has undergone a heart-breaking experience with her top horse, Hermes. An apparent clerical error at the International Equestrian Federation (FEI) listed a Dutch owner as a German, thus making the horse ineligible for Olympic participation. The error was not discovered until qualification scores were submitted, several months after the ownership deadline.