Love Me by Locksley II/Walt Disney
Year of birth: 2007
Breeder: Bernd Meyer, Flögeln
Rider: Zaneta Skowronska-Kozubik/POL
Zaneta Skowronska-Kozubik will be competing at the Olympic Games for the first time. The 44-year-old Polish rider already has championship experience: in 2006, she took part in the World Equestrian Games in Aachen/GER, eight years later in Caen/FRA. In Normandy, she was in the saddle of the Margue H/Delano-daughter Mystery (breeder: Ludowieka Haspecker, Rohrsen), as well as at the 2015 European Championships in Aachen/GER. Zaneta Skowronska-Kozubik represented Poland at the 2013 European Championships in Herning/DEN with the Weltregent H/Donnerwetter daughter With You (breeder: Gretus Buß, Verden). She has also competed at the World Championships for Young Dressage Horses. In 2008, she saddled Beethoven by Weltregent H/Brentano II (breeder: Ilse Asendorf, Verden-Rieda), who she took all the way to the final.
All three horses come from breeders in the Verden region. The connection arose from a long friendship between Zaneta Skowronska-Kozubik’s trainer Andrzej Salacki and the Baumgart family in Verden-Döhlbergen. He not only regularly bought foals, but also rode at the Verden Gala Evening. Near Opole in Silesia, he dedicates himself to training Grand Prix horses. He has been Polish champion twelve times and is regarded as one of the best riders in history in the country. In 1996, he made history when he became the first Pole to qualify for a World Cup final with Dioksan.
Andrzej Salacki has been Zaneta Skowronska-Kozubik’s trainer for many years, and he is also the owner of Love Me, in whose saddle she has been sitting for twelve years. Last year, the pair won the Polish Championships and are now focussing entirely on the Olympic Games. And with great success, she is the Polish rider with the best results in the qualifiers for Paris. “Every horse is different and a new challenge. It has its own character and you have to find the key to it. The search for its individuality alone is fascinating,’ says Zaneta Skowronska-Kozubik.
Love Me’s dam St.Pr.St. Warina has represented Hannover’s colours far beyond the borders of the state, was a participant in the 1998 German Mare Show in Warendorf and presented the winning family at the 1999 Louis-Wiegels-Show in Sandbostel. She also made three appearances – as an individual mare and with her family – at the Ratje Niebuhr Show in Verden. She came to Bernd Meyer’s stables as a young horse bred by father-in-law Gerhard Finck. In her mare performance test, she earned the judges a dream score of 10 for her walk, while her rideability and canter were awarded an even 9.0. She passed on these positive attributes to her son Fürst Wallenstein by Fürst Nymphenburg, born in 2009. Fürst Nymphenburg, who was successful in the dressage arena as a licensed stallion.
