March 16, 2026 
There was something about watching Dutch rider Sanne Thijssen and her charismatic stallion Con Quidam RB in action that brought to mind National Velvet, Black Beauty, or some other beloved childhood classic.
Utterly fearless with his sparkling eyes, gigantic stride, and wild mane, the spirited bay stallion and his young rider were an unconventional pairing, to say the least. But the longevity of their epic partnership—more than a dozen years together at the international level—speaks volumes, as does the fact that “Connie” continued to notch 5* wins with Thijssen well into his teenage years.
Today, Thijssen announced the retirement of the now-20-year-old Holsteiner, heralding the end of an international career that took her from the 1.40m ring at age 16 to the European Championships for Young Riders and on to the Senior championship podium at events including 2021 FEI Nations Cup Finals, where the Netherlands won gold; and the 2022 FEI World Championships in Herning, Denmark, where they took silver.
“I started riding Con Quidam when he was seven,” Thijssen told Longines Presents in 2024. “We were both young, and we grew together, scaling heights that came quicker and easier than anyone could have predicted. The wins started to come quite fast and easy.”
As a young horse, Connie could be difficult, and would destroy his stall and even injure himself if he was stabled near other stallions. After an attempt at chemical castration failed, Sanne’s father, Dutch show jumper Leon Thijssen, discovered that if he stabled Connie near older mares, he remained far more calm.
In fact, though the stallion was initially intended for Leon Thijssen, after Sanne helped to rehab Connie from his chemical castration, he became her horse entirely. And, whether flat-out galloping to the base of a 1.60m fence in the jump-off or catting out a seemingly impossible clear, their fearless, unconventional style and undeniable heart made them a fan-favorite combination all around the world.
“[Quidam] wins the 5* classes only because he loves to compete,” Leon Thijssen told World of Showjumping in 2023. “In a 1.30m class, he can jump very normal, but when he enters a huge arena and sees the audience, he can jump anything. Not every horse has that mentality.”
Of all of Sanne Thijssen and Con Quidam RB’s most impressive performances—among them 5* wins at LGCT Madrid (2022), Rotterdam (2021), and a second place in Flasterbo, Sweden, last July—perhaps their most illustrious victory was on home soil during the LGCT Grand Prix of Valkenswaard in 2023.
After a slight miscommunication into the final combination in the first round, Thijssen and Connie found themselves at the base of towering in-and-out which would have likely forced a refusal from nearly any other partnership—but not them. Sprouting wings, Connie cleared the first vertical, then soared over the second oxer, earning a clear and ultimately going on to win the jump-off, at age of 17, in a field of top competitors.
“This horse was not born out of a mare, he was not bred!” LGCT Commentator Frederik De Backer famously shouted into the microphone. “I think he landed with a space ship, with a UFO, and then decided that he wanted to be a horse!”
Over the last 12 years, Thijssen and Connie earned more than €1.4 in total prize money, finishing on more 30 Grand Prix podiums, and earning an 85% podium finish rate in 13 career jump-offs at 1.60m+ (Jumpr Stats).
According to Thijssen, Connie got his scope from the rhythm of his galloping canter, not, like many top-level horses, from innate power alone. Because of that, she has said she was always careful to gear him toward venues that suited him—sprawling grass fields as opposed to tight, indoor arenas—and to let him be himself without trying to change him.
“He has his own way of doing everything and he needs to be like that to get the capacity and scope for the biggest classes,” she has said. “Con Quidam’s best quality is his mentality. It makes him who he is.”
