Farewell to Albert Voorn’s Olympic mount Lando.

Another horse has unfortunately passed away.
Albert Voorn’s mount from the Sydney Olympics, Lando, died last night. Together the pair won the silver medal at those Olympic Games in Australia.
Since retiring, Lando had been staying at the Haras Beligneux stables. His owner Frèderic Neyat had made reference recently to the fact that the horse was no longer in the condition to move by itself and the situation deteriorated drastically. The loss is extremely hard to take for Neyrat who defined Lando as the horse of his life.
Lando came to prominence in the show-jumping world with the Dutch rider Albert Voorn, who is considered as the rider to have unearthed the horse’s talent. Before Voorn began to compete with Lando, the horse was considered as difficult to compete with.
Having been paired together, it seemed this reputation would eventually see Lando sold. However, at the time Voorn did not have a top horse available and his curiosity pushed him to start training with Lando and it was the start of a steady growth. The new pair began to achieve results including the national title which paved the way for Sydney and the 2000 Olympic Games. It was in Australia that against all the odds, this pair surprised everyone with a sublime performance that earned them the silver medal in the individual category.
Afterwards the mount changed hands and was paired with Germany’s Otto Becker and after a few initial difficulties he managed to obtain some excellent results. However, they failed to repeat the magic Lando achieved with Voorn and in 2005 the mount’s sporting career came to an end.
Lando also excelled as a reproducer and its most well-known offspring are Ornella Mail (Patrice Delaveau) and Oscar des Fontaines (Penèlope Lèprevost). Lando passed away at the age of 26.
source: horsesinternational