Bert Rutten
Bert Rutten, at the age of 17, announced to his father, Jo, that he “wanted to go into horses”. Like most parents, Jo was anything but enthusiastic. However, more than 30 years later, Bert can look back on a successful International Competition career which provided the foundation of his phenominal career as a Dressage Trainer and producer of top class horses for sale.
Together with Jo he has trained numerous Grand Prix Horses. Bert’s international career began at the age of 15 when he rode in his first international Young Riders competition on Neapolitano (v. Talisman). He has since successfully presented a total of 13 horses, all trained by himself, to Grand Prix level. With horses such as Parsival (v. Kristal), Olympic Garibaldi (v. Idool), Zircoon (v. Nurprimus) and Robby (v. Doruto) he represented the Netherlands in several European and World Championship teams. With Robby he won team silver at the World Championships in Cedar Valley in 1986, the first team medal won by the Netherlands since the 1928 Olympics held in Amsterdam. Bert qualified twice for the Olympic Games.
Tragically an accident in the trailer on the way back from winning at the Goodwood CDI, in England, put an end to the competitive career of the talented stallion Clavecimbel (Statuar x Apple King xx). This brought an end to Bert’s competition career as well. Teaching both at home and abroad took up too much of Bert’s time and with no suitable successor to Clavecimbel, it became impossible to combine teaching with active participation in dressage competitions. Bert now gains much pleasure from training his talented horses at home in Hunsel every day and seeing them then go on to find new homes in stables around the world.