Olympic dressage rider Yvonne Losos de Muñiz was holding back the tears as she dismounted from Aquamarijn after finishing the grand prix qualifier at Paris 2024. The 19-year-old United mare is the oldest horse in the field, and this was her final competition.
“Today was her last ride,” says Yvonne. “We actually really didn’t have a good test but that fact that we got here and went in today – I felt like I’d won.”
Although Aquamarijn had competed in Tokyo 2020, her appearance in Paris was an unexpected bonus. The mare had a serious injury – damaging the muscles in her croup – when she mis-stepped off the back of a trailer. She had a year off and has only been back in work since May 2023, when Yvonne started her rehab.
“We were just praying to God that we could rehab her enough to retire her, that’s how bad it was,” she says. “But while we were doing that, she’d give me piaffe and passage – it was still there and good. When my other two horses weren’t quite ready for Paris, I looked at her and said, ‘baby, you’re up!’.”
Yvonne says that although both rider and horse need their personal space, it’s a “match made in heaven”.
“She doesn’t want to be touched, but she wants to be close to you,” says Yvonne, 56. “She’s always watching me, and she’ll always be with me, in my back yard. I’ll keep riding her as because of her injury she needs to keep moving. She has her little moments, but I love her to death no matter what. And now she’ll make an amazing trail pony because she hates being by herself, but stick her behind another horse and she’ll go through fire.
“She is my everything. She has made me the rider I am; she’s taught me patience, skill training, having a plan A, B, C, D, all the way to Z. She’s said to me, ‘until you learn to ride me, don’t even think about goals’. And we’ve done it – World Cup Finals, two Olympics and a World Equestrian Games. She’s proved herself, and today was her goodbye [to competition]. I know it’s time.”
Yvonne has been nicknamed “Miss World” by friend Carl Hester on account of her global background. Born in Nigeria, raised in Kenya and then Germany, her family then moved to Canada. She rides for the Dominican Republic thanks to her Dominican-born husband, and wears a cute gecko stock-pin, reflecting the ubiquitous reptile of her adopted nation. She trains in Florida, US, and speaks four languages.
Check out this cute Dominican gecko
To stay up to date with all the breaking news throughout the Olympic Games, Burghley, the Horse of the Year Show and more, subscribe to the Horse & Hound website
You might also be interested in: