Sterntaler-UNICEF, the experienced partner of dressage rider Matthias Alexander Rath, has retired from competition. Ann Kathrin Linsenhoff, the gelding’s owner, decided to retire the 16-year-old Oldenburg earlier this year.

Linsenhoff bought Sterntaler as a 7-year-old after Rath’s father discovered him at a training course held in Schafhof, Germany. Linsenhoff competed Sterntaler (Sion—Aline, St. Pr. H. Manstein) for five years before illness forced her to retire from competition. They competed at the Grand Prix level and were part of the gold medal German dressage team at the 2005 European Championships in Hagen, Germany.

Linsenhoff handed the reins over to stepson Rath in 2008, and they formed a partnership that took them to the 2010 FEI Alltech World Equestrian Games (Ky.), the 2009 European Championships (Great Britain) and multiple German National Championships. Their last competition together was the CDI-W in Amsterdam in January of 2011.

“We have decided to give the 16-year-old Sterni his well earned retirement,” Rath said on his website. “Our little sister Marie will be riding him more and more now. The first encounters between those two have set our hearts aflutter.”