April 1, 2025 
As the final ‘Saturday Night Lights’ event of 12 weeks of competition at the Winter Equestrian Festival (WEF), the coveted CSI 5* Rolex Grand Prix traditionally boasts the circuit’s biggest prize money.
More than that, though, for show jumping fans, the notoriously challenging class has a way of predicting greatness in the coming year.
Take 2024, when McLain Ward and his future Paris 2024 Olympic partner, Ilex, took second place, then helped Team USA to the team silver medal in August that same year. Ditto for the Paris Olympic champions, Christian Kukuk and Checker 47, who won the class that year—an astounding feat they repeated in 2025.
And while there’s no taking away from Kukuk and the 15-year-old Westphalian gelding, for American audiences last weekend, all eyes were on Laura Kraut’s 11-year-old talent, Bisquetta.
The pair, who finished second on Saturday and 8th in the same class in 2024, even impressed event commentator and World Cup Finalist Kim Prince, who couldn’t hide her excitement when Kraut trotted into the arena.
“I’ve been waiting for this horse to go,” Prince admitted—and for good reason.
When it comes to the ‘secret sauce,’ Bisquetta displays all the prerequisite, championship-level qualities of power, responsiveness, and cat-like agility we’ve come to expect from the sport’s best. But she’s also earned a reputation for jumping clear rounds. A lot of them.
According to Jumpr Stats, Bisquetta is one of just 10 horses this year still averaging zero faults at the 1.50m, 1.55m, and 1.60m heights alongside far more veteran combinations including Conor Swail’s (IRL) Theo 160, William Grève’s (NED) Highway Tn N.O.P., and Gregory Wathelet’s (BEL) Ace of Hearts.
And though the pair have only jumped eight international rounds at those heights this season, Kraut and Bisquetta’s 100% clear percentage one-quarter of the way into the 2025 year speaks volumes. So does Kraut’s deliberate process for bringing her along.
Unlike her current top-mount, Baloutinue—who Kraut took over from Adam Prudent just months before their Tokyo Olympic debut in 2021—the American rider has taken a decidedly more active role in producing Bisquetta. Paired together since October of 2021, Kraut campaigned the mare in 1.40m-1.45m classes for a full year, jumping only a handful of 1.50m rounds that season.
In 2023, Bisquetta maintained a 57% clear round average in seven rounds at 1.55m, finishing in the top 10 at an identical clip. That, too, is a hallmark of the notoriously speedy Zangersheide who, in six starts this season at 1.50m and above, finishes in the top 5 at 50%, and the top 10 a whopping 83% of the time.
Thinking long-term, Kraut will be 62 by the time the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games roll around, but still a handful of years younger than Ian Millar was during his final Olympic appearance for Canada in 2012. Bisquetta, meanwhile, would be an ideally seasoned 14 years old, the same age as Checker 47 was in Paris last summer. And she still has plenty of talent to grow into.
“I definitely left the door open,” admitted Kraut after the $750,000 Rolex CSI5* Grand Prix on Saturday. “I added to the third and added to the double. I should have left one out in both those places.
“She’s a very quick horse, but I got a bit cautious.”
Even with those added strides, Kraut and Bisquetta were only edged out by Kukuk and Checker 47 by less than 30 tenths of a second. In other words, if that’s Kraut being cautious, we can only guess at Bisquetta’s potential when she is finally unleashed.
