Mathijs Van Asten and Hotspot. Photo © High Desert Sport Photo.
Press release from Desert International Horse Park
Mathijs Van Asten (NED) may have gotten a third-place finish in the CSI4* Grand Prix, but he had just come off a podium-topping performance in the morning’s $63,000 Heavy Metal Equipment CSI2* Grand Prix on a very impressive 12-year-old stallion named Hotspot.
Among eight clear rounds over the first-round track, Van Asten secured the fastest time by a significant margin, proving to everyone at DIHP that this horse is the real deal.
“Hotspot is a horse that came into my string as a 2.5-year-old so nobody else rode him,” Van Asten said of Hotspot’s background. “He is an approved KWPN stallion. For his whole career he’s been a very competitive and intelligent horse. He has a very good mind; he’s very careful and he wants to do the job. He likes to be competitive. I’m happy that we could secure him for my sport career at the end of last year. We are looking forward to the future.”
Watching Hostpot jump, anyone can tell he’s a special horse, and a win like the one they got Saturday was exactly what Van Asten had wanted to continue building the horse’s future.
Mathijs Van Asten atop the podium. Photo © High Desert Sport Photo.
“I work with the breeder of him. It was a nice horse to put in our program and thought eventually he’d get sold because that’s our business to develop good horses,” Van Asten explained. “When I was younger I had more of a career in higher sport but then I focused more on the training and the business. Now we try to do a combination of training and still have some horses. It’s working quite well so far.”
Van Asten outpaced Ali Ramsay (CAN) who took second with Conrado 12, owned by Ramsay Equestrian Inc, as well as Nicole Haunert (USA) who ended up third with Indigo Van De Muggenhoek, owned by Blue Gate Stables, LLC.
“This is my first time,” Van Asten said of his trip out west to DIHP. “I’m here with Vani Khosla who also owns part of Hotspot. She’s from California but she’s based in Holland training with me. We decided this winter to come here and everything is lovely. The people are wonderful and I think it’s very good for our horses. I have two older horses here and we have some younger talents. It’s very good to produce them here. We love it here.”
FEI jumping resumes Sunday with the $32,000 CSI4* 1.45m Classic.
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