Grand Prix rider Charlotte Jorst has decided to sell her stallion, Kastel’s Vitalis, to breeders Paul Schockemöhle and Lone Bøegh Henriksen. He’ll stand at stud in Germany.  

“I really want to ride and not breed,” said Jorst, who competes as an amateur alongside running her business, Kastel Denmark. “I felt so badly that [the breeding community] didn’t get to have him.” 

She added that she would get numerous Facebook messages a day, all from people asking if they could breed with the stallion. While Jorst tried to stand him at stud herself, it was becoming too complicated.

“I want to have fun, and it just was becoming not fun anymore,” she said.

The 8-year-old Dutch Warmblood stallion Vitalis (Vivaldi—Tolivia, D-Day), bred by A. de Croom, has had an illustrious career under saddle, beginning in 2009 when he was reserve champion at the Westphalian stallion licensing in Germany. He then stood at stud for a couple of years at the North Rhine-Westphalia State Stud in Warendorf, Germany.

Next Vitalis competed with Dutch rider Marieke van der Putten in the 2012 FEI World Breeding Championships for Young Horses in Verden, Germany, as a 5-year-old before Jorst purchased him and brought him to the United States. 

Jorst and Vitalis achieved the highest-ever qualifying score for a U.S. pair, a 9.19, at the 2013 Markel USEF Western Selection Trials for the FEI World Breeding Championships (Calif.). They went on to finish 13th at the 2013 FEI World Breeding Championships. 

Back in the United States, Vitalis was also the Markel USEF Young Horse Championships (Ill.) 6-year-old winner that year. In 2014 the pair competed in the small tour level at CDIs in Colorado and California. 

While Jorst was feeling pressure from the breeding community, she was not actively looking for a buyer for Vitalis. In fact, the decision to sell the Dutch-bred stallion to Schockemöhle and Henriksen came about organically. 

“I was in Europe, and it took [on] its own life a little bit,” she said, adding that she had heard of Henriksen several times while looking at some horses a couple months back. 

After visiting Henriksen’s farm, and listening to her describe the level of care and attention Vitalis would be getting, it sealed the deal for Jorst, and she said she felt comfortable that he would be happy there.  

“Lone and I, we have a lot in common; we both have business backgrounds,” she said. “We started chatting, and she said, ‘Oh I would love to buy Vitalis,’ and it sort of worked itself out.”