Hale Bob OLD

Hale Bob OLD, Ingrid Klimke’s Olympic silver medal winner, two-time individual and team European champion, World Championship bronze medalist and five-star winner – this horse is the best example of why love at second sight can turn into a happy relationship, and why dressage is there for the horse and not the other way round.

Love at first sight? Probably not.

When Ingrid Klimke got the Oldenburg Helikon xx son Hale Bob under the saddle as a five-year-old, he had gained his first experience in show jumping, but had never competed in cross-country and there was still room for improvement in the arena, to put it mildly. “He looked like an Irishman with a big head and a thin neck,” Ingrid Klimke once described her first impression of the bay in the Clip My Horse interview. But he could jump very well, was ambitious, courageous and had the necessary shot of thoroughbred to be able to hold his own in the cross-country.

As far as dressage work was concerned, the potential here was certainly limited. But after all, the riding master had also turned the almost thoroughbred Butts Abraxxas into a “sub-20 minus points eventing dressage horse”. So Klimke took on “Bobby’s” training.

As a youngster, he was “like a speed bump”, Klimke once said in an interview. Paul Stecken advised her to ride him a lot on curved lines, voltes, figure eights and also over cavaletti time and again. She was later able to improve the movements by developing the carrying power. Also in hand. Wilfried Gehrmann often used to work Ingrid Klimke’s horses from the ground. And as Klimke reported in an interview with St.GEORG, piaffing on the long lines was the moment when Bobby understood “where the hind legs actually belonged”. She was also able to improve his canter through pirouettes. Dressage work in the sense that it should be.

But even though jumping and cross-country were more his thing than dressage, Bobby didn’t make it easy for his rider at first. His enthusiasm for cross-country, which was clearly written on his face from start to finish on every single ride, meant that he always wanted to be a whole lot faster than his rider at the start of his career. In other words, he was unstoppable in the cross-country. He simply went through. At the World Championships for Young Eventing Horses in Lion d’Angers in 2011, she seriously considered simply jumping off, says Klimke. But by then Bobby was already so fast that she no longer dared to do so. She already wanted to sell him, but the national coaches Hans Melzer and Chris Bartle as well as her team advised her to wait. She tried a reining bridle for the cross-country, combined with consistent stopping after every obstacle to prevent him from getting into the race in the first place. That worked. Ingrid Klimke gained control of her hot horse and Hale Bob’s career took off.

From a runaway winner to a five-star winner

At the age of nine, the gelding competed in his first four-star tests (which were still three-star tests at the time). His breakthrough came at the age of ten. In the fall of 2014, Hale Bob gave his rider her first five-star victory in Pau (then CCI4*). At the stables, the ugly duckling became “Super Bobby”. It still stands in his stall today. By the time he won in Pau, he had emerged from the shadow of Escada, who was great in all three disciplines. While her career ended earlier than expected due to injury, Bobby was always on hand.

In 2015, he and Ingrid Klimke started the season with a fantastic second place in Badminton, and Bobby made his championship debut at the European Championships in Blair Castle, where they won gold with the team and finished fifth in the individual classification.

In 2016, they had an annoying run past the second water complex at the Olympic Games in Rio, but secured the team the silver medal with a clear round on the course.

In 2017, Bobby gave his rider her first individual title in Strzegom, Poland: European Champion. A success that they even topped two years later. It was double gold in Luhmühlen.

From the German team’s point of view, the 2018 World Equestrian Games in Tryon were a bit of a washout. But for Ingrid Klimke, they were a triumph until the last obstacle on the course. Hale Bob played with the difficult cross-country conditions and was in the lead before the final jumping competition. When they were the last pair to enter the course, the world championship title was within their grasp. Gold was within reach until the last jump. But this is where it happened, the knockdown they should not have allowed themselves. What could have been gold became bronze. A shame, but also a great success!

Covid instead of Tokyo

In 2020, Bobby was 16 years old but still in top shape. He would probably have been seeded for the Olympic Games in Tokyo. But corona put a spanner in the works of all his sporting plans this year. This was particularly unpleasant for riders with horses whose careers were slowly coming to an end.

In 2021, Ingrid Klimke fell so badly at the beginning of the season that she was ruled out for the Olympic Games. But she was fit again in time for the European Championships in Avenches and her faithful Bobby carried her to team silver once again.

End of career

In spring 2022, he injured his tendon on a cross-country gallop course during the dress rehearsal for the World Championships in Pratoni del Vivaro, the Nations Cup tournament at the same venue. That was the end of his sporting career. At the age of 18, “Bobby” or SAP Hale Bob OLD, as he was now officially known, went into well-deserved retirement. He spends it in the pasture with Ingrid Klimke.