Earl of Alice comes from the same breeding stable as Alice, that of Ralf Mewes. The dam Cinsablume by Cinsey has the same dam as Simone Blum’s world champion. The pairing with star sire Eldorado by Zeshoek (Killer Queen, Elektric Blue P) produced Earl of Alice in 2018 and a licensed full brother of the same name in 2019. After his first competition starts under Maximilian Schreiber, Katrin Eckermann took over the stallion at the age of five and carefully built him up.

The pair’s career highlight to date was the bronze medal at the World Championships for Young Show Jumping Horses in Lanaken in 2024. Apart from that, however, what is particularly impressive is how often the bay went clear through the course. It is much easier to count how many faults he has made: four – and that’s out of 61 courses (including jump-offs and winning rounds) that he has jumped in his life on the international stage.

Horse empire Coolmore

No wonder Earl of Alice caught the attention of the Coolmore Showjumping team led by Cian O’Connor and his protégé Tom Wachman. The Wachman brothers Tom and Max and their sister Alice are the grandchildren of Irish billionaire John Magnier, who turned the Irish Coolmore Stud into one of the most important racing stables and breeding operations in the world. Stallion legends such as Saddler’s Wells and Galileo were at home here. Just as professionally as Coolmore has established itself in galloping, it has also positioned itself in show jumping. Cian O’Connor has been the siblings’ trainer since 2017. The Irishman has gone down in his home country’s Olympic history three times – and not just positively (he was stripped of his Olympic victory in 2004 for doping his horse Waterford Crystal). But one thing is certain: Cian O’Connor has an eye for good horses.

In future, Earl of Alice will be ridden by 20-year-old Tom. He already has an impressive list of successes to his name. Since 2018, he has been part of the Irish squad at the respective European Young Rider Championships every year. He has brought home three team gold medals as well as one silver and one bronze with the team. He also won a silver medal in the U21 individual competition in 2023. Wachman has also successfully represented Ireland in CSI5* Nations Cups and placed in Aachen, La Baule, Rotterdam and Dublin this season.

He has had good experiences with horses that were previously successful under German riders. His two current top horses Tabasco de Toxandria and Do it Easy were previously ridden by Kendra Claricia Brinkop.

Another Iron Dames horse

Until not so long ago, Earl of Alice still bore the suffix “Iron Dames”. He was one of the horses that French rider Deborah Mayer had acquired for her Global Champions League team with this name. Katrin Eckermann is part of this team, as are Janne Friederike Meyer-Zimmermann and Sophie Hinners. However, Earl of Alice was already re-registered with the FEI in August and Paul Schockemöhle was registered as the official owner.

It was also recently announced that Janne Friederike Meyer-Zimmermann would have to part with the Olympic mare Dubai du Cedre, which Mayer had acquired for the Aachen winner just a year ago. And Katrin Eckermann had to let go of the hopeful Cydello, who she had taken over from Richard Vogel and with whom she had already competed successfully several times this year.

Dubai du Cedre wurde als WM-Hoffnung 2026 für den Saudi-arabischen Springreiter Abdullah Alsharbatly erworben. Cydello ist bereits die ersten Nullrunden mit Edwina Tops-Alexander unter australischer Flagge gesprungen.

Swiss daily newspapers also report that Deborah Mayer has parted with a car collection worth a mid-double-digit million sum in an auction.