The Award She Never Received

Her name was Remember Z.

And she was the most important partner of my career.

Not just a horse.
A partner.

A bay mare with whom I spent years of my life – on motorways across Europe, in the stable aisles of international tournaments, and in training halls where we worked together for countless hours.

But for me, she was never first a bloodline. For me, she was simply: my horse. And she was a personality.

When she was fourteen, we decided to take her out of sport for a season and breed a foal from her. That foal became Celektra Z – to this day her only daughter.

A year later we covered her a second time. The first examinations showed she was in foal again. Before winter came, we had her checked by ultrasound once more to make sure everything was in order.

But as spring approached, something strange happened. Her belly didn't grow larger – it grew smaller. A further examination eventually confirmed what we had already suspected: she was no longer in foal.

Of course, no one can truly know what a horse thinks. But we often had the feeling that she had made her own decision. Because whenever we prepared the trailer to go to a competition, she became restless in her stable. She heard every sound – the opening of the tack room, the clatter of equipment – and seemed to be saying:

Don't forget me.

So she came back to sport. And she did what she had always done. She carried me – and my daughter too – back to victories at international competitions.

We competed at international events across Europe.

Rome – Piazza di Siena.
San Patrignano.
Vienna – the Stadthalle.
Arezzo. Milan. Arnhem. Salzburg. Hamburg Derby. Geesteren. and more.

Qualified for WC 2006 Aachen · EC 2007 Mannheim · EC 2009 Windsor

Arenas where you suddenly realize, as a rider, that the world is watching. She carried me through courses you only ride when you trust completely. Combinations where you no longer have time to think – only to trust that your horse understands what you are asking of it in that moment.

And she understood me. Not always perfectly. But always honestly.

At the Vienna Stadthalle she won an international class – in the same arena where, behind us, a legend of the sport, Hugo Simon, finished in second place.

I still remember that moment exactly. Not the applause. Not the music. But the feeling on her back as we galloped through the finish line. That rare feeling of two beings being completely in sync for a brief moment.

She competed at five-star tournaments across Europe. Nations Cups. Grand Prix. And yet there are no official records of her victories in Germany.

Not because she didn't win them. But because I ride for Romania.

I came to Germany as a young person. I built my life here, trained here, developed my career here. But at international competitions, I represent my country of birth. And so our results disappeared into a strange gap between two systems. Too international for the national record. Too Romanian for the German system.

She won those competitions anyway. No one just wrote them down.

Many years later I began riding national tournaments in Germany again – this time with young horses. The victories were registered. They accumulated.

One day the president of the Baden-Württemberg equestrian federation came to me. He said:

"Andy, you now have the ten registered victories. We want to present you with the Goldenes Reitabzeichen in Pforzheim at the Goldstadt-Cup."

For outsiders, it is a medal. In equestrian sport, it is one of the highest distinctions.

I thanked him. And said I could not accept it.

Not because it meant nothing to me. But because I knew exactly who it should have belonged to. The victories that truly counted. The arenas that truly meant something. The performances that would have deserved this honor. They had been achieved by a mare who never appeared in those statistics. By Remember Z.

Accepting a medal felt wrong. Like receiving an honor on behalf of someone who was never invited to the ceremony.

The president of the Baden-Württemberg equestrian federation did not immediately accept my decision. He called Christian Kraus, chairman of the Pforzheimer Reiterverein and organizer of the Goldstadt-Cup.

Christian said something I had never thought about before:

“Then accept the award. But dedicate it to her.”

That sentence changed everything. Because suddenly I understood: no federation could retroactively register her victories. But I could speak her name. In front of people who knew what she had achieved.

So I finally said yes.

The ceremony took place at the Goldstadt-Cup in Pforzheim. I stood in the arena with the medal in my hand. And I said what needed to be said:

That this award does not belong to me. That it belongs to Remember Z. And that she had earned it many years before I accepted it.

I had been warned I might not make it through emotionally. I almost didn't.

Because two months earlier she had died. Colic. On the evening before we were to leave for the CSIO 4★ in Linz.

We brought her to the clinic immediately. The surgery initially went well. She came out of the operating room and was moved to the recovery box. I stayed with her.

An hour passed. Then two. She tried to stand – and fell again. A second time. Then a third. We were four people holding her.

The chief veterinarian gave painkillers. Then stronger ones. Then morphine. For brief moments she became calmer. Then the pain came back.

In that moment I knew we were fighting something we could no longer win.

After almost four hours we made the decision no rider ever wants to make.

She died in my arms.

Later the veterinarian explained to me what had happened. During the surgery she had suffered a rare spinal cord injury – a complication that can occur when horses lie under anesthesia. The veterinarian told me: “When she woke up, she actually had no chance anymore.”

Many people ask me what equestrian sport teaches a person. I would have said before: trust. Presence. Decisions under pressure. That is true. But it is not the whole truth.

The most important thing horses have taught me is responsibility. Responsibility for a living being that cannot speak for itself.

Horses respond to things that people often don't even notice. If you are unclear, your horse will be unclear. If you hesitate, your horse will hesitate. If you are afraid, your horse will be afraid.

And when you are truly present … a horse sometimes becomes something greater than you yourself are.

Remember Z taught me that. In arenas across Europe. On a bay mare whose most important victories were registered in no system.

Today the Goldenes Reitabzeichen sits in a small case in my office. It has her name on it. It is the only official record of what she achieved.

But the most important things in life are rarely registered by systems anyway. Not the partnership between a rider and their horse. Not the trust that grows over years. And not the loyalty that remains beyond death.

Remember Z won many competitions. Some of them appear in statistics. Many do not.

But every rider who has once had a special horse knows: the most important victories of a horse are those that only two beings truly understand.

INTERVIEW · GOLDSTADT-CUP PFORZHEIM

Shortly before the ceremony, Andy Candin spoke about Remember Z, the Goldenes Reitabzeichen, and what it meant to accept an award in memory of a horse who had already earned it.

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