Dara

In 2021 Dara’s first son, Leone Jei, started off his jumping season under Martin Fuchs. At the time he was a relatively unknown nine year old. But within a few months he grew out to be one of the world’s most famous showjumpers. Leone Jei won gold in the team competition and individual silver at the European Championships in Riesenbeck. His wins in the Rolex Grand Prix in Geneva straightly led to his breakthrough. In 2022 he added the CSI5* Grand Prix of Dinard to his impressive record of achievements and remains Fuchs’ best performing horse to this day.

Having a look at the pedigree of Leone Jei, we see a strong Dutch origin. Father Baltic VDL, who is already witnessing his first lot of descendants competing at 5* level, was matched with the VDL Corland daughter Dara. The match appears more than successful as Leone Jei’s full sister, Idara, was also already performing in the 1.45m classes under Martin Fuchs at the age of nine.

Dara herself is the daughter of the Peter Pan mare Pardous, who received the prestigious ‘Performance’ label from KWPN based on her six internationally active offspring. The best known of these six must be Impossible Dream, a VDL Cardento progeny who reached the 5th place at the Grand Prix in Caledon with Shane Sweetnam.

Delving even deeper into the lineage, you come across numerous international top showjumpers, such as Una van Berkenbroek (Tim Stockdale), Worrior van het Dingeshof (Simon Buckley) and Abbervail van het Dingeshof. The latter already won the WC qualification of Den Bosch and the Grand Prix of Bordeaux and Vienna with Denis Lynch.