A little horseplay for Israeli riders ahead of 2020 Tokyo Olympics
The team qualified for the Olympics in July 2019 with a win at the Olympic Jumping Qualifier at Maxima Park in Moscow.
By GABRIELLE ABRAMSThe Israeli equestrian team(photo credit: Courtesy)Israel’s first Olympic equestrian team will gear up for a trip to Tokyo this month. The team composed of Ashlee Bond, Elad Yaniv, and Danielle Waldman will compete without teammate Daniel Bluman, who was barred from the Games this week.
Colombian-born Bluman was told that he is unable to compete because his horse, Gemma, is listed as American rather than Israeli. Bluman requested assistance from the International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI) to correct this error but was denied, so Bluman was replaced by Teddy Vlok, who will ride Amsterdam.
The team, with Bluman, qualified for the Olympics in July 2019 with a win at the Olympic Jumping Qualifier at Maxima Park in Moscow.
American-Israeli Bond is one of the members of the team who will continue to the Games in the coming weeks. The 36-year-old Bond is Christian, although her father is Jewish and was born in Haifa, and she became an Israeli citizen in 2018.
Bond began competing at age six and won her first grand prix at age 16. Since then, Bond has won the 2009 CHIO Aachen, 2014 HITS $1 Million Grand Prix, and an FEI Nations Cup amongst other titles.Israeli equestrian Ashley Bond. (Courtesy)
Fellow American-Israeli teammate Waldman grew up on the Upper East Side of New York. Waldman’s parents were nationally and world ranked professional squash players. Her riding career began at age six in the United States, but she only turned professional in 2012 when she was an Israeli citizen. Waldman has won many riding competitions, including the 2019 €300,000 LGCT Grand Prix of Berlin CSI 5. 36-year-old Waldman is known for wearing hundreds of colorful hair extensions to competitions that take her over six hours to put in. American-Israeli equestrian Danielle Waldman. (Courtesy)
The final member of the team is 43-year-old Elad Yaniv. Yaniv has had 944 starts and 26 wins in his long equestrian career. Yaniv first sat on a horse at the age of seven months with his father in Israel and at age six he began equestrian. At age 16 he took up equestrian jumping professionally, which included taking a job as a nurse and rider in a sales stall near Arnhem, Netherlands. In addition to competing, Yaniv also runs Elan Yaniv Showjumping stables in Willich, Germany.
