September 9, 2026 
Like proud parents, many top riders shy away from publicly declaring a favorite horse on their string, even if the answer—at least for many of them—is fairly obvious. Not Yuri Mansur.
The Brazilian show jumper makes no bones about the fact that his partner of nearly a decade, Vitiki, is the horse closest to his heart—and for good reason.
The pair had a strong first season together, moving up from 1.35m classes to jumping clear at the top of the sport in the space of less than a year. During a jump-off in Aachen in 2018, however, Mansur and the Hanoverian gelding suffered a bad fall together, with Vitiki breaking his right front pastern. The prognosis wasn’t good.
Mansur, who was late arriving at the veterinary hospital after he himself needed to be checked out for a head injury, got there in time to find one of best friends, a vet, starting at Vitiki’s X-ray and crying. But Mansur was convinced he had to try to save his partner, no matter the odds against it.
He opted for surgery, and in doing so, embraced the long and fraught road to recovery ahead.
Vitiki spent six months in his stall after surgery, and a painful 45 days in a cast. “The first year of Vitiki’s recuperation, everyone asked me why I was even trying,” Mansur told World of Show Jumping in 2023. “If something would have gone wrong in the process of bringing him back, I would have also been considered a monster for trying.
“My obsession for him coming back was perhaps connected to myself as well. I felt like if he would not come back, I would not either,” the Brazilian rider said.
Vitiki did come back, by the spring of that following year, but he was far from out of the woods. His soundness was a constant worry for Mansur when jumping, especially over the open water, and he rarely trotted off without a hitch—causing Mansur’s veterinary team to wonder if they had crossed a line by saving him.
Even when his strength and body condition improved, Vitiki’s stride length was shorter than before, his scope had diminished, and he was hotter than ever to ride. But Mansur felt certain their story wasn’t over yet.
In 2021, the gelding returned to the top sport, jumping the 5* Grand Prix in Wellington with just one rail down, and earning the only clear for Brazil in the second 5* Grand Prix that same season. His rider was elated, but there would be more hiccups to come: a hard left drift that shortened the gelding’s already diminished stride, and a nose tumor that had to be surgically removed and required an additional three months of down time.
By 2022, the pair were once again on the rise, finishing second in the Grand Prix of La Baule, and earning a triumphant clear at Aachen in the Prize of Europe—the class of their original accident. In the last three years, the pair have twice finished in the top 12 at FEI Jumping World Cup Finals: in Omaha where they were 4th in 2023, and in Fort Worth where they finished 11th in 2026.
And, last weekend at Longines Global Champions Tour (LGCT) Valkenswaard, Vitiki—now 18 years old—and his rider finally earned an accolade they’d spent nearly a decade chasing through unimaginable ups and downs: their first-ever 5* Grand Prix victory.
“I’ve had so many good chances and could never finish the job—finally! Especially with my favorite horse, it is even more special,” Mansur said after his win.
The pair was one of eight combinations to jump clear in Round 1, just besting Pieter Devos (BEL) and Casual DV Z by a few tenths of a second in the jump off: 37.27 to 37.97. Annelies Vorsselmans (BEL), riding in her debut season on the LGCT, was third with Trezequet (38.85 seconds).
As a senior horse, Vitiki may be jumping fewer rounds this year than he has in the past, but his striking rate is better than ever, jumping clear at 50% in six classes at 1.60m+, and finishing in the top 10 in four of his seven starts at the same height (Jumpr).
Eight years after Mansur and his team stared at Vitiki’s glowing X-rays at a veterinary hospital in Germany and cried, there were happy tears streaming down Yuri Mansur’s face as he climbed to the top of the podium in Valkenswaard, his unshakeable belief in his horse’s character and ability finally justified.
“Who could imagine it would be at this age, 18 years of age, in the end of his career. [Vitiki] finally got his name stamped in that powerful trophy [?]” Mansur wrote on Instagram.
“And this is why Vitiki is Vitiki. He breaks all the barriers and limits, all rules. He shows us, normal individuals, that when you believe, the best part is still yet to come.”
Vitiki the valiant, indeed.
