Text © World of Showjumping

On Saturday night, the curtains closed for Pedro Veniss' striking stallion Quabri de l'Isle (Kannan x Socrate de Chivre) at CHI Geneva – the venue where the now 17-year-old stallion won the Rolex Grand Prix back in 2016. 

Together, the pair – crowd favourites world-wide – represented Brazil at the Olympic Games in Rio in 2016, and again in Tokyo this summer. They have competed at two World Equestrian Games, in Caen in 2014 and Tryon in 2018, as well as at three Pan Am Games - taking team gold in Lima in 2019. 

In 2016, they also won the CSI5* Rolex Grand Prix of Versailles, in 2017, the CSI5* 'Pan American' Grand Prix at Spruce Meadows, and in 2018 they were third in CSIO5* Rolex Grand Prix of Aachen, to mention some of many career highlights. 

”Quabri has been the best friend I could ever have asked for,” Veniss tells World of Showjumping. ”He is such a special horse, I feel like he did everything for me, he changed my career. I feel really lucky to have this horse in my life, to have been able to ride him. I hope that with his breeding career, someone else is going to get as lucky as I did and gets a horse with this mentality - because I have never seen a horse with such a nice character and a mentality like his.”

”There have been so many good moments, but for sure winning the Rolex Grand Prix in Geneva was one of the most special ones,” Veniss says. “I always dreamed of winning a Rolex Grand Prix. Another very special moment that I had with him was at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, where I was the last to go in from the Brazilian team. The crowd there was unbelievable, they were shouting ’Brazil, Brazil’ to all of us. I was a bit stressed in the warm-up, but just as we walked down to the arena, Quabri started to scream – as if he was telling me ’Pedro, we are going to be ok, no problem.’ That was such a nice feeling, a communication we had.”

”My plan was always to do the Olympics in Tokyo with him,” Veniss tells about the decision of retiring Quabri. ”I wanted to retire him when he is 100% in form. I felt that it was the time to do this for him now, here in Geneva. It will be difficult, going forward without him. However, I do have two nice horses that I believe are very good, so I am motivated, but for sure Quabri is a horse of a life time. He has everything; all the scope in the world, quality and such a nice charachter. His mentality is just unbelievable. He is now going to breed, but when the season is over, he will come back to Spain and stay with me. I want to thank all my team who took such good care of Quabri during his career." 

With this photo special, we wish Quabri – one of our all-time favourites – a happy retirement!

All photos © Jenny Abrahamsson and Nanna Nieminen for World of Showjumping.