PrintIt all started 15 years ago in a quiet country town in Belgium, with a plumber, a 12-year-old girl, and her bike.
When Sapphire’s dam Idjaz C (by Hedjaz) started to foal, young Sofie van Bunder jumped on her bike to find her father, Walter, who was working as a plumber in the nearby village of Sint-Gillis-Waas. Upon hearing the news, Walter, a part-time horseman who bred about three mares per year, jumped on the bike and pedaled furiously to the foaling. But by the time he arrived, a chestnut filly was already on her feet.
“We thought she was a really special foal,” said Walter’s son Bjorn, who was 10 at the time of Sapphire’s birth. “She had a unique blaze, like an arrow pointing up, and we took that as a sign that she would jump high.”
Sapphire’s jumping career didn’t start until she was almost 6, when Bjorn and Sofie took her to small shows. “She was doing well, but often she’d have one or two rails,” said Bjorn. “She always had a good round but was spooky or distracted. She promised a lot and had all the scope.”
They didn’t worry that her 6-year-old year started off slow. After all, she’d had foals (by Voltaire and Ahorn Z) and didn’t do much else until the middle of her fifth year.
But by the time her seventh year rolled around, Sapphire was beginning to show the form that would make her one of the best horses in the sport. Horse dealer Francois Mathy spotted her that spring and called McLain Ward.
It’s no surprise to U.S. Show Jumping Chef d’Equipe George Morris that Sapphire, who has two Olympic team gold medals and a team silver medal from the World Equestrian Games, can jump so well. He believes it’s the Darco influence.
“Many of them are heavy horses, but they are like heavy people on the dance floor who can really dance. Looking at them, you wouldn’t expect them to. They don’t look like they’d be like blood Thoroughbred, going horses, but they are,” he said.
The van Bunders still try to keep in touch with Sapphire and attended her first Olympic Games in Athens in 2004. “We go to Aachen [Germany] and Rotterdam [the Netherlands] every year, and it’s good to talk to McLain and know how she’s doing and what the plans are for her. It’s great to still be in her life,” said Bjorn.
Tom Grossman, of Blue Chip Farms in Wallkill, N.Y., has similarly enjoyed being a part of Sapphire’s life. A breeder of harness horses, he joined Ward as a part owner of Sapphire in 2006.
“I think the biggest accomplishment is not getting her to the highest level, because she’s such a talented animal, she was going to get there no matter what,” said Grossman. “But managing her to be there for five or six years and at her best on the days when it matters most is the biggest thing.”
In September, Grossman said he saw “some of the most exciting sports drama I’ve seen in my entire life” as Sapphire won the $818,488 CN International Grand Prix at Spruce Meadows Masters (Alta).
“Spruce Meadows took a monkey off her back, because she just missed [winning] Aachen a few years ago,” said Grossman. “As an individual, she had not won any of the biggest shows, and McLain had to shave his head as a result.”
In 2009, Sapphire won consistently all spring and summer but peaked at the end of September, with double wins at the Hampton Classic (N.Y.) and Spruce Meadows. Morris believes this bodes well for 2010, when he hopes she will be on the U.S. team at the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games in September.
