The great Totilas took the dressage world by storm around the last turn of the decade, producing world record scores and gasp-inducing performances under the Netherlands’ Edward Gal. Now his progeny are starting to follow in his footsteps at grand prix level, including Glock’s Toto Jr...
This nine-year-old Glock’s Toto Jr is certainly one of Totilas’ most interesting and high-profile offspring, being from his first crop of foals. He was licensed in 2013 at Verden, and sold for €100,000 to Glock, Edward Gal’s sponsors. He has since become a very popular breeding stallion, with amost 700 offspring to date, among them several licensed sons.
The Hanoverian stallion, who is out of the Desperados daughter Desperada, has now put himself firmly in the frame for a top level dressage career with a stunning grand prix debut performance under Edward Gal last week at the CDN Schijndel in the Netherlands.
The pair pulled off a mistake-free test, with clean tempi-changes and well-established piaffe-passage work. They received a huge score of 79.43%, putting them well ahead of Edward’s partner, Hans Peter Minderhoud, in second riding Glock’s Casper to 73.73%.
This is the first time Edward has competed the black stallion, who has concentrated on breeding duties up until now, and is yet to make his first international competitive appearance.
Earlier this year, Edward hinted that he is aiming Toto Jr at the Tokyo Olympics, originally due to be held this summer, but now postponed to 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Edward’s current top ride is the 12-year-old Danish warmblood stallion Glock’s Zonik NOP, by Blue Hors Zack x Romanov, with whom he lead the Dutch team to silver at last year’s European Championships, also finishing individually eighth and sixth in the grand prix special and the freestyle respectively.
But this impressive debut from Zonik’s younger stablemate certainly makes him a realistic prospect for the Olympics in 2021.
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