Corent Obolensky | Cornet Obolensky

چهار نعل: Corent Obolensky | Cornet Obolensky

Cornet Obolensky, the Belgian gray stallion born on April 20, 1999, is one of the most influential horses in the history of modern show jumping; a horse who…

Cornet Obolensky was bred in Belgium by Thierry Degraeve; out of the mare Rabanna van het Costersveld, who was herself a daughter of the outstanding Dutch stallion Heartbreaker, and by the legendary Clinton. In his early years, as a young colt, he drew the attention of the experienced German stallion agent Heinrich Ramsbrock and came into the ownership of his Ukrainian owner, Valentin Nychyporenko, who leased him to trainer Kai Ligges. Cornet was approved for breeding in 2001 at Munster-Handorf, but he still went on to training for competition, and this time the German international rider Marco Kutscher took the reins. The first encounter between the two showed no sign of a golden partnership: the very first time Kutscher sat astride this energetic stallion, Cornet bucked, jumped over a rope fence, and escaped into the stable yard; even so, he won his class that same day.

Kutscher’s patience in the following seasons turned that raw and unruly talent into one of the most consistent Grand Prix horses of his generation. Under his saddle, Cornet became a fixture on European and world showgrounds for nearly a decade.

In 2008, the pair won the individual bronze medal at the German Championships in Balve and then represented Germany at the Hong Kong Summer Olympics (the 2008 Beijing Games). But their results were later annulled after the horse tested positive for a banned substance (Arnica/Lactanase) that had been administered without declaration to the competition veterinarian.

Cornet Obolensky came back powerfully from that incident: in 2009 he finished runner-up in the FEI World Cup Final in Bordeaux and took third place in the Rio de Janeiro CSI Grand Prix. He also survived a coffin bone fracture at an indoor event in Zurich. The peak of his career came in 2011, when at the European Championships in Madrid he helped lead the German team to the team gold medal.

The year 2012, Cornet’s final competition season, began with victory in a FEI World Cup qualifying round in Zurich and continued with team wins in two FEI Nations Cup stages in Rome and Rotterdam. At the end of that season, he was named Germany’s highest-earning show jumping horse (with seasonal earnings of nearly 339,842 euros and total earnings of nearly 799,952 euros over his competition career) and in October 2012 he was permanently retired from competition in Rio de Janeiro to return full-time to the breeding barn.

But it is as a sire that Cornet Obolensky became a true phenomenon; perhaps the most influential show jumping stallion of the modern era. With a breeding index of 165 at 96 percent reliability, he left more than seventy approved sons and dozens of Grand Prix-winning daughters. His offspring, including Cornet d'Amour (winner of the 2014 World Cup Final with Kevin Staut), Comme Il Faut (European and world Championship medalist with Marcus Ehning), Clooney 51 (world and European medalist with Martin Fuchs), Cornado NRW, Corbinian, Balou du Reventon and Cornella, swept World Cup finals, Olympic and championship medals, and Nations Cups around the world; his total progeny earnings exceeded 13 million euros. Three of the four finalists in the 2016 World Cup Final traced back to him, and in the 2019 Super Grand Prix of the LGCT league in Prague, his descendants claimed four of the nine top places.

Cornet was awarded the title of stallion “Ambassadeur” in Belgium in 2012 and repeatedly topped the WBFSH world rankings for show jumping stallions. Until recent years he was based near Kyiv in Ukraine, until the Russian attack in 2022 made the emergency evacuation of him and his fellow stallion Comme Il Faut to Europe necessary; an event that clearly showed both the value and the vulnerability of this line.

Those who cared for him describe a calm, food-loving, and almost lazy character in the stable; a temperament that was completely at odds with the explosive talent and stubborn will he showed under saddle. Marco Kutscher saw this very duality as the source of both the difficulty and the brilliance of riding him.

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