Evento, Elite Stallion
Evento - with nearly three hundred offspring, opened the doors of International Dressage for the Spanish Horse.
Evento (Leviton x Tecnica by Jenson) 1985.
Evento, the most famous horse of the breed …
Evento (sired by Leviton)
Evento with nearly 300 offspring opened the doors of international dressage for the Spanish horse.
Evento, sired by Leviton, is related to Stryker DD and Princess DD via their great grandsire Granadino XI 1978. Granadino was a silver-white stallion imported from Spain. He was the sire of Nobleza D, who had in turn Jandira DD, who had Stryker DD and Princess DD. Granadino was a half-brother to Evento.
Evento, the most famous horse of the breed, was born in 1985, and died before his 30th birthday in 2014. In 2016, he achieved the category “Elite Stallion” after having some 300 offspring from 1991 to 2015, some of which have been highly qualified in the sports realm such as Distinguido X… all of this allowed this stallion to climb to the highest category within the Purebred Spanish Horse breed.
Evento was branded by the Yeguada Militar and was the son of Leviton, grandson of Agent, and great grandson of Maluso. This genuine line of champions was also present in the maternal branch as Tecnica, was daughter of Jenson, thefore also a granddaughter of Agente. With Evento, we have an almost pure copy of the Maluso line from the Yeguada Militar.
Evento is one of, if not, the most famous horse of the breed for a fundamental reason - he was the first horse of the Purebred Spanish Breed recognized internationally in dressage competitions. Evento opened the door to a goal that seemed unattainable before his participation in the arena - the effective domonstration of the PRE horse’s skill for Grand Prix competition or classical dressage. This was highlighted by his excellen ranking at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta which he achieved with his rider Ignacio Rambla of the Real Escuela Andaluze del Art Ecqueste (real school of the Spanish arts). It was four years after the Olympic Games in Barcelona where only Juan Matute participatied. Therefore, Evento opened the door to a “dream” and also a reality - the competence of the Spanish Horse for sport competitions. These were doors that twenty years later are still open, as Invasor and Fuego de Cardenas have demonstrated, and as prospects continue to show - some of which are the offspring of the horses previously mentioned.
The “discovery” of Evento happend at SICAB 1996 (largest single breed horse show in the world held in Sevilla, Spain each fall) when the organizers asked Alvaro Domecq from the Real Escuela de Jerez (Spanish school of riding in Jerez, Spain), to perform the Grand Prix test. As it turned out, one of the spectators was Rosa Maria Fradera who was then responsible for the Spanish Equestrian Federation, and knew nothing about this horse and rider. Truth be told, Rosa was really surprised seeing the masterful riding skills of Rambla and Evento’s excellent executions. There after ,the SICAB organizers quickly contacted Alvaro Domecq, the owners of the horse, the Yeguada Militar, and soon after, the quest to achieve world greatness in the discipline of classical dressage began.
A few years later, Rosa Maria Fradera commented, “Evento greatly helped us qualify for the first Olympic Games in Atlanta, because thanks to him we received a lot of points.” She remembered one time when Evento competed in the Grand Prix, and Kyra Kirkland, the Finnish rider, commented that she was surprised that such a “little horse” had such a dream passage. It was this show that opened everyone’s eyes to the PRE. It was at this show that everyone’s eyes to the PRE were opened. Eric Lette was there, the same who had judged Evento in Luxembourg before the Atlanta trip. When asked by journalists about Evento, he said, “Well, when something is done poorly you get a low score, but likewise, when something is done very well, like this passage, you have to give high scores. What am i to do if this horse has a passage that deserves a nine.”
In the late 1980s, in Jerez de la Frontera, Evento had already been considered a colt with a promising future. As one trainer recalled, “in passage, trot, and gallop … to ork his natural balance before being ridden, his horse behaved with the nobility of the breed. “
Four Spanish trainers, including Javier Garcia Romero, Manuel Ruiz, Ignacia Rambla, and Domeqc decided unanimously that the son of Tecnico was exactly what the equestrian institution needed, and also that Rambla would debut with in in 1989. This was how his "1993 “discovery” at SICAB was achieved. Ramblas and Evento were witnessed by rider Klimke (a German expert) and he offered a very positive opintion “I like the horse” but insisted he would need many hours to perfect Evento’s’ technique.
The weaknesses observed y Klimke were fixed within a couple of months, “especially the most collected step .. little had to be taught to the Jerez horse regarding galloping and elevated movement such as piaffe or passage, which earned scores of “nine.” In this way, Evento and Ignacio Ramblas would be responsible for rediscovery of the modern Spanish horse. They were Champions of Spain in 1995, 1996, and 1997. At the Olympic Games of Atlanta, Evento won 7th place for teams.
According to Ignacio Ramblas, “Undoubtedly Evento opened the door for PRE horses in International Dressage, he was the horse that took me, for the first time, to an Olympic final, and of him I emphasize his heart, every time he stepped into the ring, it grew. He was an amazine horse.”
After the World Equestrian Games in 2002, it was decided that Evnto would reitre and retun home where there were hundreds of mares wiating for this stallion’s characteristics. This was hoe this horse became one of the most prolifci horses in the breed with nearly 300 offspring. He was finally assigned to the “reproducer’s catalog” of the Equine Breeding Center in Zaragosa, where he died at the age of 29 in 2014.