First five-star start, first five-star victory for Richard Vogels' Diatasio

Diatasio is an eight-year-old OS gelding by Diaron-Centadel. He was born at the Lewitz Stud Farm owned by Paul Schockemöhle, but unlike so many other Lewitz-bred horses, his dam’s line does not boast pages upon pages of success stories. While there are a few S-level horses among his relatives, none of them are the kind that would be classified as “Black Type.” That may now change, however, as Diatasio clearly has what it takes to become a Black Type horse.

Love at First Click

Just as Diatasio had been broken in, the Lewitz Stud offered him for sale through one of the online auctions. Judith Schmidt, a successful breeder from Naumburg in Saxony-Anhalt—who, among other things, bred Hans-Peter Minderhoud’s Olympic dressage horse Toto Jr.—discovered the gelding. “We’re Diaron fans, and I really liked his free jumping,” she says. She liked him so much that she prevailed in an online bidding war against connoisseurs from Great Britain, Spain, and Romania, who also recognized the bay’s potential. Ultimately, she won the bid for 17,500 euros—a rather modest sum, as we now know.

At first, the Schmidt family entrusted the young horse to Alexander Rottmann in Westphalia. He continued Diatasio’s training and entered him in his first show jumping classes at the age of five. “Even back then, the way he jumped was remarkable,” says Judith Schmidt. But Diatasio wasn’t a horse for just anyone. “He had an incredible amount of nerve and spirit. That wasn’t exactly easy.”

But in the end, that’s exactly what a top-class horse needs. North Rhine-Westphalia and Saxony-Anhalt—it’s quite a long way. Because they wanted him a little closer to home, the Schmidts decided to send Diatasio to Saxony to be trained by Manuel Prause. Prause continued to develop him until he was ready for his first S-level competitions and his first international appearance in May 2025 in Hohen Wieschendorf. It was a fateful decision for the horse’s future career.

Love at First Sight

Because Richard Vogel was also at the starting line in Hohen Wieschendorf. The world’s number one is also a world-class talent when it comes to discovering world-class horses. While still in Hohen Wieschendorf, Vogel rode Diatasio on a trial basis and sealed the deal. Since then, the gelding has technically still officially belonged to ZG Judith and Sönke Schmidt, but in reality, he belongs to Team Vogel and Will Equestrian.

Diatasio made his tournament debut alongside a fellow countryman of Manuel Prause, two-time Derby winner Marvin Jüngel, who had ridden for Team Vogel & Will for quite some time. Among other events, Jüngel competed with Diatasio at the World Championships for Young Show Jumping Horses, where the pair confidently qualified for the final with two clear rounds. There, however, they ran out of steam a bit, resulting in two knockdowns.

After that, Diatasio took a break until Jüngel took him to the tournament again this year and rode him straight back into the top ranks of the Youngster Tour at the Mannheim Maimarkt Tournament. It was the farewell tournament for the two of them, because starting in June, Richard Vogel took the reins himself.

, the “

zero-fault machine

“—Since then, not a single tournament weekend has gone by without Diatasio winning at least one class. All in all, he has competed in 45 courses since May 2025 and has had 31 clear rounds. The only time he had more than one knockdown was in Lanaken at the aforementioned World Championship final.

The Brown spent the summer months in America, where Vogel rode him to his first victory in a CSI2* Grand Prix in Calgary. They repeated this success in Greenwich at the end of September. In between, they made a brief stop in Europe to win a Youngster Tour jumping competition at the CSI5* in Brussels.

’s 5-Star Debut

Yesterday, the gelding made his debut in a five-star show jumping competition—his first 1.55-meter jump-off at the Major Show Jumping League in Tryon. The debut was a huge success: victory with the fastest round in the jump-off against Nicholas Dello Joio on Cornet’s Cambridge and Shane Sweetnam on Pia Maria H, as well as nine other competitors, including the winners of the Monterrey Grand Prix, Rodrigo Pessoa and Prins van’t Eigenlo. The German champions, Christian Kukuk and Akarad Tivoli Z, missed the jump-off after a knockdown in the regular round.

Although Judith Schmidt no longer has any ownership rights to her discovery, Diatasio, she’s still proud. “I’m absolutely thrilled that he ended up with such a great rider and is now so successful. I’ve always believed in this horse,” she says. And yesterday might just have been the beginning.