European Dressage Championships: Spain’s Fuego injured and withdrawn

The popular grey stallion Fuego De Cardenas (pictured) is injured and will not go to the European Championships in Herning, Denmark next week.

He was due to compete for the Spanish team with his long-term rider Juan Manuel Muñoz Díaz but injured himself this morning in one of the pair’s final training sessions before they were due to leave for the championships.

He was immediately attended by vets who concluded that he could not safely travel to the show.

The departure of Fuego — usually the team anchor — from the Europeans means Spain are left with just two competitors and can no longer field a team; teams are made up of three or four combinations (with the best three scores to count).

Juan Manuel’s team-mates Jose Daniel Martin Dockx (Grandioso) and José Antonio Garcia Mena (Norte Lovero) will now compete as individuals. 

At the 2012 London Olympic Games Fuego finished 10th with a patriotic freestyle.

Watch the pair in action at WEG 2010 here:

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