Gratitude was shown at the Royal as a yearling but only began his show career under saddle in 2019 with Carly Wulf. This gelding is presently receiving training from Claudia (Frauchiger) Johnston of Hidden Valley Farm near Stayner. It is hoped that he will find a home with a rider that will take him to the top levels of dressage or 3-day eventing at which he is destined to compete.
Gratitude’s sire was the two-time world champion dressage horse, Gauguin de Lully, born in Switzerland but of Swedish Warmblood breeding. Vicki had hoped to repeat the bloodlines of Rigaletto (Reipo) and that is as close as she could get using Gauguin de Lully. Gratitude did take strongly after his dam in some respects but “Tude” has Lombard and Lortzing in her sire, Ginsberg’s pedigree. It is a known fact that the R.C.M.P. has brought over some of the best dressage bloodlines in Germany to produce the mounts for the Musical Ride. Gratitude is a grandson of our R.C.M.P. broodmare, Bonny. She was 75% Thoroughbred and 25% Clydesdale. Gratitude went to only his second dressage show (summer 2019) and came home with a championship in the basic dressage. Due to weather conditions, he didn’t attend his first Essa hunter show as planned on Sept. 22nd but some video is posted to show how versatile this young horse is.