Baloutinue by BalYou du Rouet/Landor S
year of birth: 2010
Breeder: Heinrich Meyer, Langwedel
Rider: Laura Kraut/USA
Three years ago, Baloutinue and Laura Kraut won Olympic silver with the US team in Tokyo/JPN. Due to injury, they were unable to compete at the World Championships in Herning/DEN the following year. Now the 14-year-old bay is once again making his way to the Olympic Games. ‘It’s so exciting that I have the chance to take part in my fourth Olympic Games,’ says a delighted Laura Kraut. The pair have been in Europe since May and Baloutinue is in good form. In Madrid/ESP he finished sixth in the Grand Prix of the Global Champions Tour, in Rotterdam/NED Baloutinue took fourth place in the lap of honour and in Aachen/GER he came twelfth in the Grand Prix.
Baloutinue’s story begins in Langwedel, less than five kilometres from Verden, where he was born at Heinrich Meyer on April 5, 2010. As a talented youngster he came into the reliable hands of Franziska Baum-Gundlach at the Fohlenhof in Hofheim-Wallau just outside Frankfurt at the age of five. The rider and trainer, who achieved her greatest successes with the stallion Forsyth FRH by For Pleasure/Dorian (breeder: Heinrich Eckhoff, Beckdorf), the Hannoveraner Stallion of the Year 2020, carefully introduced the 1.68 metre tall bay to the sport and celebrated victories and placings in tests for young show jumpers. There was great international interest in Baloutinue, who had a reputation for being a ‘somewhat special’ horse with al lot of scope. He was sold to the United States in 2019 via Swiss Daniel Etter. With Adam Prudent, he passed his first international tests over 1.40 metres in Florida with flying colours. In the same year, he collected World Cup points over 1.60 metres. After a sensational victory in the 2021 Grand Prix in Wellington/USA, Baloutinue came to Laura Kraut’s stable. It didn’t take the experienced show jumper long to adapt to the gelding. Just 14 days later, the pair won the next Grand Prix and secured a place on the US team for Tokyo/JPN. At the Olympic Games, Baloutinue and Laura Kraut made a decisive contribution to winning the silver medal in the team competition with two clear rounds. ‘I don’t think there’s anything Balou can’t do,’ says Laura Kraut. ‘He’s probably the horse of my life!’
Breeder Heinrich Meyer did not live to see these successes, as he passed away in 2019. He bred a total of four foals from Baloutinue’s dam Utika, herself placed in medium (M) level show jumping competitions, all of which were successful on the show jumping course – albeit not at Baloutinue’s level. The third dam, Utopia, produced Ludger Beerbaum’s World Cup horse Figaro’s Boy by Figaro. If you go further back in the dam line, you also come across international Grand Prix horses: Uta Gräf’s Dandelion OLD by De Niro and Lisa Müller’s Gut Wettlkam’s Stand by me OLD.
