Céline Stauffer
Has all the ingredients of a recipe entitled
“Enduring Success”:
Enthusiasm, Talent and Endurance at Work.

As simple and sincere as a bouquet of field flowers is how you may describe Céline Stauffer. Very hard on herself, she directs her stable of top-level show-jumpers with a constancy and assiduity which hardly leaves her time to rest on her laurels which she has, however, picked up consistently over numerous seasons.
In spite of a very busy competition agenda, the horsewoman, who is established in Vaud, received Horses of the World’ with great kindness during this spring 2004. Our pleasant meeting took place in Payerne at Olivier Pradervand’s private training center. Here, a hundred horses use modern installations, ideally situated in the center of Europe, very near to a road network which allows access to the great capitals, Paris, Milan, Munich and even Barcelona in a few hours.

 

A Broken Arm which equalled Encouragement

When still a child, Céline dreamt of ponies and she got, for her fifth birthday, a welcome present: poney lessons. However, during her second lesson she broke her arm which would be enough to quell the enthusiasm of many children. No matter. It was only a stumbling block, and she still laughs at it today: “Less than a year later, I was back in the saddle for good!!”
Céline continued and was soon selected by the Swiss team in the “Pony” category. That’s how she first tasted competition and got ready to amaze her elders who were already riding great horses: “I enjoyed the ponies !! I was lucky enough to be twice swiss champion and to be in the European Championships, which all contributed to my original aim to be a real professional show-rider.”
In 1995, the Olympic rider Fritz Ligges was an attentive training master for the young girl who had decided to spend six months in Germany at a good ... Jumping / Dressage ... stable. On her , she was in the swiss junior team from where she moved into the “Young Horseriders’Selection”. There, she immediately obtained third place in the team event at the European Championships at Morzelay in Belgium. Continuing good high level results led her into the Elite of Swiss horseriders at age of 22. It was the time when she worked for another great master of international show-rider, her compatriot Thomas Fuchs. She stayed with him 9 months before going to the stables of a swiss owner, in Aarau where she signed an 18 month contract.

 

In 2000, Céline Stauffer opens her own stable:
“Enthusiastic sponsors and competent colleagues helped me greatly at this decisive moment in my career.”

Opening a competition stable is never an easy affair for young professional. Céline Stauffer saw her hard work and unending passion for the horse fully rewarded by the coming of an important sponsor who did not hesitate to join her in her show-... Jumping / Dressage ... enterprise. In fact, Thomas Straumann decided to confer to Céline a nine-year-old that they had envisaged to put out of training as he was so difficult to ride and train. This was in March 2000 and the horse’s name was DALOUBET D’EVORDES.

“With François Merz, we did some very good work which enabled us to find the “real” Daloubet d’Evordes in record time” says Céline, thus , only 6 months was necessary for the beautiful chesnut to be placed in a Grand Prix at Verbier. In December 2000, two more stallions, one called FELIN PIERREVILLE, then 2 mares, all of great quality, joined Céline Stauffer’s ranks.
The important Belgian bank KBC became associated with the Swiss show... Jumping / Dressage ... team becoming sponsor of Céline Stauffer’s stables. This was an appreciable aid which was to guarantee results at the highest level and in the long term.

 

They form an important pair this spring:
DALOUBET D’EVORDES and Céline Stauffer
are natural candidates
for the Athens Olympics in 2004

Are the Olympics a real goal for a top-class rider ? Perhaps for some. In any case, Céline Stauffer has not made it a main goal in the short term. And besides, as she loves to repeat:
“there are only long term objectives which really interest me with horses.” So, not ready for such tests ? “On the contrary, I am not somebody to run away even less if it means defending my country’s colours at the Olympics !! It must depend only on the form of DALOUBET D’EVORDES (and mine, also !) at the moment of being included in the final list, at the end of June ! It is just a question of form and performance in competition in the final weeks before going to Athens, because as far as the pure class of the horse goes, there is no doubt that the best DALOUBET D’EVORDES would be up to the task.”

 

“Having 4 Grand Prix’horses, I can look forward
with a certain optimism !!”

(on the picture above, LORIFEE Z makes up the four aces of Céline Stauffer, along with DALOUBET D’EVORDES, COCO CABANA, and FELIN PIERREVILLE).

 

Our young rider cannot complain as she has occupied competition stadiums with excellent results since the start of the 2004 ... Jumping / Dressage ... season ! Céline Stauffer’s team has a winner’s morale due to more than ten placings in category “S”, three of which were events won at the highest national level.
Before leaving us to arrange the imminent transport of her horses to the CSIO at Pontevedra which will be the first stage of a journey which will then go to Rome and Lucerne, she again wanted to praise the remarkable work of her stablemate, Céline Corsini, who works the horses in her absence; her valuable companion on all the courses of Europe, Pierre Navarro, who also takes care of the transport and the horses during competitions; but also Karine Cuttlod, physiotherapist “NST”, responsible for the horses’well being.
You should finally know that Céline Stauffer admires Beat Mändli a lot (“He is the most gifted of all us”) she says without hesitation, and that she counts the fences jumped easily by TINKA’S BOY and Markus Fuchs before sleeping, (“those two are really made for each other!!”).