If The Golden Bachelorette has taught us anything, it’s that there are many ways to continue looking and feeling great well into your midlife—and beyond.
It’s no different for horses, as evident in the recent Longines Global Champions Tour (LGCT) Grand Prix of Rabat, Morocco.
There, two top performers in the €500,000 class could well be considered elder statesmen: the winner, Rokfeller de Pleville Bois Margot, a 19-year-old Selle Français gelding under Spain’s Eduardo Alvarez Aznar; and the runner-up, 16-year-old H&M Indiana under Sweden’s Malin Baryard-Johnsson.
Everybody loves a feel-good story, and the fact that two “veterans” of the sport dominated the podium in one of the last major grands prix in 2024 is no minor feat. But what makes these horses—and one more on our list—so exceptional is that these results are no one-off.
In fact, all three have earned at least €1 million or more with their current riders while still maintaining a full show schedule, and earning some of their best results to date.
Rokfeller de Pleville Bois Margot
According to Jumpr, Rokfeller de Pleveille Bois Margot has competed 142, 1.60m or higher classes and collected more than €1.2 million in earnings over his 11-year partnership with Alvarez Aznar. Their win in Rabat was their second, 1.60m *5 victory after a grand prix win in Zurich seven years ago. In the time between, the gelding appeared in his second Olympic Games in Paris, the 2018 FEI World Equestrian Games, and two FEI World Cup Finals—finishing in the top 10 in both.
In the last 365 days, he’s jumped clear at a 50% clip in 18 rounds at 1.60m+. That’s even better than his stats, say, seven years ago, when Rokfeller earned his first *5 win and competed 30, 1.60m+ rounds at a 43% clear rate.
H&M Indiana
It’s a similar story for second-place Rabat competitor H&M Indiana, a dynamo in her own right. In 2018, Baryard-Johnsson and the BWP mare won team silver in the 2018 FEI World Equestrian Games, took team gold and finished 5th individually at the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games, and earned team gold in the World Championships in Herning in 2022. With the exception of 2023, the pair have taken home one, *5 grand prix win a year, every year since 2021, amounting to more than €2 million in total prize money (Jumpr).
In her eight, wildly successful years under Baryard-Johnsson, Indiana has competed in a total of 134, 1.60m or higher rounds with a 54% career clear rate. This year, at 16, the pair still jumped an impressive 20 rounds at that height so far, maintaining a 50% clear rate and finishing in the top 10 58% of the time.
Toupie De La Rogue
Not to be outdone, the 17-year-old Selle Français mare Toupie De La Rogue was campaigned successfully at the top level by France’s Julien Epaillard before moving to Belgian rider Pieter Devos’s string in 2021. And like the senior horses above, she’s still a serious *5 contender.
Last week, Devos and Toupie De La Rogue took 10th place in the FEI Jumping World Cup qualifier in Helsinki. They were third, in August, in the LGCT Grand Prix of London—an event they’d previously won in 2022—and a result that secured Devos a place in the 2024 LGCT Super Grand Prix in November. Not only that, they kicked off their year with a victory in the FEI Jumping World Cup qualifier in Basel St. Jakobshalle, a sizable purse that went toward their more than €1.3 million in total prize money.
What’s more: in the last 365 days, the pair jumped 19, 1.60m+ rounds at a 42% clear rate, finishing in the top 10 in 17 starts at a standout 65%. That’s on par with Toupie’s career average of 41% clear rounds at that same height, but a significant improvement on her top 10 finishes: up by more than 15% (from 49%) overall.
In other words, these three horses are proof that senior-status is an ever-more negotiable factor in the picture of overall showjumping performance. Or perhaps, describing his relationship with Rokfeller de Pleville Bois Margot after their win in Rabat, Eduardo Alvarez Aznar put it best:
“The age is just the number he has in the passport.”