Lord Luciano

You may or may not know Debra Tyler and Lord Luciano. She owned Enrico Caruso and he died in a fire at her farm. The German Verband invited her to send her last colt to Germany for inspection and stallion testing which she did and he has remained in Germany since. He has been in dressage training with Tehri Stegars (recently awarded an honor by the Verband for her work in training Trakehners and getting them to top levels). Tehri is also training Axis. Axis is winning everything in sight and is considered a shoe-in for the World Games.

Lord Luciano is more than one year behind Axis in training. Tehri told Debra Tyler that he has just as much potential as Axis. Luciano has limited GP showing, whereas Axis has been two years at GP. At the show this weekend Axis won GP Freestyle with a 75.9 and Luciano came in second at 72.1. That is with much less training than Axis, to give you an idea of his potential.

It costs Debra about $1300 a month to keep Luciano in training and she is able to swing that. The problem is she lost her sponsor for showing (who had paid the entry fees and travel expenses). The show fees for the World games and Olympics qualifying shows are outrageous and she has no money to continue.

This is her dilemma. She received a grant from the ATA for $1,000. Needless to say that is long gone. She is looking at maybe another $2500 a month for showing from now until the world games in 2014 and then the olympics. There is one dressage foundation in the U.S. that she contacted, but they will only give her a grant if she has an American rider. Debra is vested in Tehri and believes in her wholeheartedly. When you change rider/trainer at this late date you get into problems like Totilas. Tehri grew up on Trakehners, understands that you don't train them the way you would train a colder warmblood and does a fantastic job bringing out their best.

So Debra has only a few options left: 1) Find a corporate sponsor, and she has contacted many to no avail. Most want her to be a non-profit tax exempt entity. 2) Sell him outright in Europe (and hopefully the new owner will continue on the same path) or sell him in the U.S.

It would be really cool we you could have a world games winner out of an American born and bred Trakehner, but I am still cheering for Axis too. Tehri did tell Debra confidentially that Luciano has more potential than Axis because he has more concentration and does not spook easily. In fact, Tehri asked Debra for permission to take Luciano to Aachen for the Parade of Nations because that was the only horse she trusted to ride through all the flags waving. It would be better yet if he was showing for the U.S. But so far his points are going to Finland where Tehri is training him. She is the #1 dressage rider for Finland. The U.S. dressage team has already been formed and they are on their way to Europe now so there is little chance Luciano could be picked up at this late date by the U.S.

So anyone up for forming a Friends of Lord Luciano fundraising group to sponsor him and allow him to continue with Tehri? If we can find 25 people at 100 a month, we could boost him into the limelight.

The Trakehner has a disadvantage when being marketed as a dressage prospect. They don't have the carriage horse gaits and the average trainer is looking for that. The inspectors at foal inspections are looking for that movement. The Trakehner is overlooked because while they have a better walk and canter, they don't have that exaggerated trot. It is not until you are into 2 years of training that they are looked at seriously. Generalizations, of course, there are always exceptions.

I also want to put a shout out to Tanzeln who is also a son of Enrico Caruso who is doing well in dressage, despite a lay off from an injury at a training stable where three stallions got together and injured themselves fighting. I am following his accomplishments also.

Any ideas or thoughts on this?

Deborah Corff