Paris—July 27

The aptly named Forever Young Wundermaske, a 21-year-old Oldenburg gelding (Weltbekannt—Deer Rose, Deerhound) ridden by Ronald Zabala Goetschel of Ecuador, made history today as the oldest horse ever to start at the Olympic Games. The pair scored 37.70 and stand 51st after dressage.

“I have Googled that, I’ve done ChatGPT and everything,” said Zabala Goetschel, who at 57, is also the oldest eventing rider at this year’s Games. “The oldest in eventing has been 19. And this guy is 21, and he’s flying; he never gets tired, never get ssick and never had an injury in his life. And I have thought that he has been retired twice.”

The gelding has been known simply as Wundermaske for most of his long career, but Zabala Goetschel officially changed his name with the Fédération Equestre International to Forever Young Wundermaske on July 4, according to FEI records—just days before the deadline for Olympic entries. Around the barn, though, the bald-faced gelding is called “Patchito.”

Patchito was originally campaigned by Sharon White, who completed the Kentucky and Pau (France) CCI4* events (now CCI5*-L) with him in 2014, placing 23rd and 19th, respectively. She sold him to Zabala Goetschel in 2015, who competed at the 2018 FEI World Equestrian Games in Tryon, North Carolina, finishing 64th.

“I retired him at 19, [then] I brought him back to qualify when they postponed the Olympics. I said, I owe this to him because it was not his fault that I couldn’t get points [to qualify] because I was injured twice in 2019; I fell off of another horse,” Zabala Goetschel said. “So I brought him back, we went to Tryon in November 2020, and he qualified for Olympics. And then I didn’t have enough points.

“I retired him again, and I bought horses again,” Zabala Goetschel said. But his new mounts got injured. “So Patchito has come back! He takes all the bullets, and he loves it. When I retired him the first time, I had to send him into another barn in my farm because he was crazy. [It’s like he] told me, ‘I want to go, come on, I’m here.’ [So I moved him] because he was desperate. But then the groom told me that he’s running like crazy in the paddock all day, like, ‘I want to do something,’ and so here we are. He has the same problem I have: We think we are younger than what we are.”

Given Patchito’s age, Zabala Goetschel has a careful regimen for fitness. “I have a different system to train him,” he said.

Since they arrived in Europe in February, “I’ve been riding him six days a week, but back home he only gets ridden once a week, once every 10 days. I do a lot of walker. I have a trotter with rubber shavings, so they trot without weight. And I gallop him; I jump him once a month. He knows what to do.”

Zabala Goetschel has been working on his own fitness as well, losing 11 pounds since arriving in Europe.

“A pound means a lot. I’m trying to just be thankful with him and be grateful and try to weigh less and stay fit,” he said.

He wants to make cross-country as easy as possible for his partner, and he said he’s looking forward to Saturday.

“It’s a beautiful course,” he said. “I think the straighter routes are easier than the options, even though they could be bigger, but I think that they’re easier. So I don’t think I will take any options; I don’t think so. However he feels, we’ll see.”

Their FEI results this spring include several withdrawals and a cross-country elimination for an error on course, but at their last international competition before the Olympics, the Avenches CCIO4*-NC-S (Switzerland) in June, they finished 21st with a clean, conservative cross-country round.

Zabala Goetschel also competed at the London Olympics in 2012, finishing 43rd on Master Boy.

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