At a glance
Identity snapshot
Verified biographical fields, separated from interpretation.
- Foaled
- April 28, 2006, Belgium
- Sex / color
- Mare / bay
- Studbook
- sBs / Belgian Sport Horse
- Barn name
- Annie
Profile
The story
HH Azur's career combined championship reliability with an unusually strong late peak. Bred in Belgium by Nathalie Beaufort, the bay sBs mare was born by embryo transfer from Sion van de Zuuthoeve and sired by Thunder van de Zuuthoeve. Pedro Nolasco began her under saddle and introduced her to competition before she moved through Diego Perez Bilbao's stable and into McLain Ward's program. An international ownership partnership gave Ward the ride and supported the mare through a long five-star career.
The combination won Rome's major Grand Prix and helped the United States earn Olympic team silver in 2016. Their signature championship came at Omaha in 2017, where HH Azur completed five World Cup Final rounds without penalties and delivered Ward's first overall title. Fourth in the 2018 Paris Final, she remained relevant well beyond one cycle. At sixteen she won the 2022 Rolex Grand Prix of Geneva, then followed with the 2023 Dutch Masters Grand Prix. She retired later in 2023 and was voted USEF International Horse of the Year for that final season.
Editorial analysis
Why this horse matters
HH Azur joins repeatable championship performance to elite longevity. Omaha's five clear rounds show more than jump-off speed: they document consistency across an entire multi-day final. Olympic silver and a major Rome victory establish the mid-career peak, while Geneva and the Dutch Masters show that she could still win demanding Grand Prix events at sixteen and seventeen. Her history also preserves the production chain from Belgian breeder and embryo-transfer origin through early development, international ownership, and a long-term rider partnership.
Selected record
Career highlights
A concise chronology of documented championship and major-event performances.
- 2016
Rome Grand Prix
Won the Loro Piana Grand Prix at CSIO5* Rome.
- 2016
Rio Olympic Games
Helped the United States win team silver and finished in the individual top ten.
- 2017
World Cup Final
Won at Omaha after five fault-free rounds.
- 2018
Paris World Cup Final
Finished fourth as defending champion.
- 2022
Geneva
Won the Rolex Grand Prix at age sixteen.
- 2023
Dutch Masters
Won a second consecutive Rolex Grand Slam major before retiring later that year.
Live name watch
News mentioning HH Azur
Exact-name matches from this horse's discipline only. No fuzzy matches, recycled stories or unrelated fallback headlines.
No recent exact-name coverage for HH Azur appears in the monitored show jumping feeds right now.
Checked Jul 27, 2026, 9:12 PM EDT. No match means only that the current monitored feed window contains no exact reference; it is not a claim that no coverage exists elsewhere.
Open the full live news deskReference desk
Research record
Pedigree, people and career facts remain grouped by type for quick comparison.
Career record
- FEI starts
- 188 recorded from 2010 onward
- FEI wins
- 25 recorded from 2010 onward
- Olympic medal
- Team silver, Rio 2016
- Retirement
- Summer 2023
Pedigree
- Sire
- Thunder van de Zuuthoeve
- Dam
- Sion van de Zuuthoeve
- Damsire
- Sir Lui van de Zuuthoeve
Connections
- Breeder
- Nathalie Beaufort
- Later owners
- Double H Farm and McLain Ward; earlier partnership included Francois Mathy
- Principal rider
- McLain Ward
- Early riders
- Pedro Nolasco and Diego Perez Bilbao
Reading the record
Research context
Technical and historical notes, presented as context rather than instruction.
FEI's profile remains marked active even though retirement was formally announced in 2023.
Ownership changed during the career; this profile dates and qualifies the later and earlier partnerships rather than presenting them as simultaneous.
Five fault-free rounds at Omaha distinguish championship repeatability from a single fast jump-off result.
Provenance
Detailed source trail
Open the institutional record behind the dossier and see exactly what each source supports.
Fédération Equestre Internationale
HH Azur (103QN45) (opens in a new tab)
Birth date, sex, color, studbook, pedigree, riders, FEI statistics, and World Cup results.
Accessed July 25, 2026
Fédération Equestre Internationale
Great performances: McLain Ward and HH Azur (opens in a new tab)
The five-round Omaha championship performance.
Accessed July 25, 2026
US Equestrian
HH Azur and Paradigm win 2023 Horse of the Year titles (opens in a new tab)
Later ownership, Geneva and Dutch Masters victories, retirement context, and 2023 award.
Accessed July 25, 2026
Data boundary
Unknown is not a blank to fill
This dossier publishes reviewed fields and source-backed editorial analysis only. A field that is not shown remains not established in this source-checked dossier. EquinAtlas does not infer missing results, ownership, health, availability, or commercial terms.