Para dressage demands precision, focus, and an almost unnerving calm. Fan Tastico H, a 2017 Oldenburg gelding (Fürstanball OLD x Weltmeyer), delivers all of it. He once spent his afternoons chasing a ball with a 10-year-old in a barn aisle, now he’s a medal-winning para dressage horse. He doesn't see the contradiction, and neither does anyone who's ridden him.
Known around the barn as "Fanta," he came into owner Karin Flint's life after a year and a half of searching. She knew what she was looking for: a horse with a truly beautiful walk and the temperament to match. When a contact in Europe called to say they'd found something special, she trusted the lead. Fanta’s breeders, Markus and Sina Haverkamp, weren't sure they were ready to let him go, but Flint and the Haverkamps ultimately struck a deal. Fanta made his way to the U.S. roughly three years ago, just six months before the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games, where he would go on to earn an Individual Silver medal and a Team Gold medal for the U.S. Para Dressage Team.
The Haverkamp’s hesitation made sense. Fanta had worked his way into the family. Their daughter, just 10 or 11 at the time, had claimed him as a playmate, chasing a ball with him, letting him play with her hair, spending hours simply keeping him company in the aisle. "I have two photos of them playing together," Flint said. "I love horses like him. He's so people oriented."
His warmth wasn't just endearing. For a para dressage prospect, it was exactly the quality Flint was looking for. "I thought I'd take a chance," she said, "and that was the beginning of our wonderful time together."
It proved to be a good bet. The little girl had ridden him bareback in the forest near their farm in Germany, and that easy, trusting nature carried straight into the competition arena. He follows his rider at shoulder height without being asked, and once he understands what's expected of him, he commits completely. "He doesn't break stride," Flint said. "Once he figures out what he's supposed to do, he sticks with it and isn't spooky at all. It's just been a wonderful situation for a para rider."
Flint's instinct for a horse like Fanta didn't come out of nowhere. Her own path into the sport started because her daughter, Lisa, wanted to ride. Flint decided to take lessons too, and the hobby quickly became something more. "I got a horse and then shortly thereafter I got another one," she explained.
That passion eventually pulled her into the business side of the sport. Flint joined the Bloomfield Open Hunt, a private club with its own equestrian center, and stepped in with Irv Goldman to manage the struggling Motor City Detroit Shows in the early 1990s, working to bring the event back to life. When that show closed following a land sale, Dean and Alex Reinheimer approached her about a new venture in Michigan, and Flint later made the investment that became Flintfields Horse Park in Traverse City, a property she helped build from the ground up — clearing land, restoring the barn and house, and living in a camper on-site through the first seven summers. The show grounds have since earned recognition including a North American Riders Group Top 25 ranking and the USHJA Zone V Horse Show of the Year and today draw exhibitors from across North America each summer.
It's the same hands-on devotion that shows up in the way she talks about Fanta. Fanta's steadiness made him a natural partner for para dressage athlete, Marie Vonderheyden. When the two came together, the combination clicked. In Fanta, Marie found not just an athletic partner, but a horse who actively meets his rider halfway, reading the room, staying calm, and giving everything he has in the arena. "He's like a big dog with hooves," Flint said. "He wants to be in every conversation and to know what everybody's doing." In a sport where the connection between horse and rider must compensate for physical challenges other disciplines don't demand, an intuitive partnership is everything.
Described as a "gentle giant," with what Flint describes as a beautiful neck, Fanta is physically striking but getting close enough to appreciate it is its own challenge. "I can't always hug his head," Flint laughed. "I stand and hug under his leg and put my head on his shoulder." Off the clock, his priorities are straightforward: people and his favorite treats, a natural pellet called Grazers, which he can smell coming from what feels like miles away.
When asked to sum him up in a single word, Flint doesn't miss a beat: Fantastic.
And if he were a human celebrity? "Tom Cruise," she said. "He's handsome, does his own stunts, and somehow just doesn't age." Flint knows how fortunate she is. "I've been very blessed to have this horse," she said. "He's special because he wants to be with people. He's not standoffish at all."
Fanta, for his part, seems to feel exactly the same way.