Tip Top 962, Leslie Morse’s Grand Prix dressage stallion, retired to stud on Dec. 13. The 17-year-old Swedish Warmblood ended a career that included FEI World Cup Finals, multiple Grand Prix wins, and a bronze medal team performance at the 2006 FEI World Equestrian Games in Aachen, Germany.
Morse, Beverly Hills, Calif., first spotted “TT” while he was in training with Finnish dressage rider Kyra Kyrklund. Although the bay stallion wasn’t for sale, Morse persisted and finally convinced Kyrklund to sell him in 2003. TT (Master 850—Hortensia, Chagall) had already had a successful young horse career; he won the Swedish Young Horse Championship three years in a row in 1998, 1999 and 2000.
“There are not many horses I know that can do so well in the young horse, then be so successful in Grand Prix,” Morse said. “Not only that, but going so well straight from Prix St. Georges to Grand Prix, he did that so well.”
TT started 2004 in the small tour and captured the national title at that level before moving up to Grand Prix later in the season and earning top placings at international shows. He twice represented the United States in the FEI World Cup Dressage Final in 2006 and 2007, as well as competing for Team USA at the 2006 WEG. He earned the national Grand Prix championship at the Collecting Gaits Farm/USEF Dressage Festival Of Champions in 2009 and went on to win the Grand Prix Special at the Hickstead CDI***** in England that same year.
In March of 2010, TT incurred a brief absence from competitive dressage when colic surgery forced him to sit out. He returned to the ring in August to compete in his last national championship.
“We had a great time, and he gave me some of the best years of my life,” Morse said. “He did everything I could have asked for, and I feel so blessed to have had him. He is a very inner horse. He is even a bit shy, but at the same time he can enter a very large event stadium and be bold. He filled up the ring with his sparkle. For me this shows how special he was as a dressage horse.”
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TT has been an active breeding stallion for many years, and Morse estimated that he has some 300 offspring on the ground. Now he will devote all of his time to stud duties. Morse currently trains some of his progeny, including Tip Top Sterling, a recognized Swedish Warmblood stallion who is currently competing at third level.
“We want to focus on breeding and providing a fabulous retirement for him,” said Morse. “It’s so hard to compete and breed, and we’d like to commit full time to the breeding.”
Morse is seeking stallion owners interested in leasing TT for the 2012 breeding season so she can continue to focus on training his offspring and the offspring of her other Grand Prix stallion, Kingston.
Interested stallions stations can inquire via email or by visiting Morse’s official website: www.lesliemorsedressage.com.
