Addendum:

There exists some confusion within the equestrian community about my reference to Chief Rider since my name can nowhere be found in books of the Spanish Riding School nor is it listed within the roster of Chief Riders accessible over the Internet. The facts are that I was promoted to that position by Colonel Handler in 1967 when I was already in contact with the Brazilian Federation about accepting their offer. As it happened, the Colonel heard secondhand of my intended move to Brazil from visitors who attended a Spanish Riding School performance in February of 1968 at the Grüne Woche, the popular equestrian event which took place annually in Berlin’s Deutschlandhalle. Both shocked and furious about my decision to leave the school and disappointed over my refusal to accept his proposal to become his right hand, the Colonel locked up my Chief Rider certificate in his safe and refused to give it back to me.

Once in Brazil I was informed by a lawyer that Colonel Handler had no legal right to refuse the release of a certificate awarded by the Department of Agriculture of which the Spanish Riding School was a subordinate branch. I followed the lawyer’s advice to demand its release and in less than two weeks I had my Chief Rider Promotion on my desk in Rio de Janeiro. This action made Colonel Handler so angry that he immediately withdrew my pictures and any reference to me in his upcoming book and refused to talk to me for years. The result of his cutting me out of his book set off a chain reaction not only affecting my absence from all subsequent Spanish Riding School publications but from the re-issued existing publications in which I had formerly appeared as well.

In 1974 we met again at a party at the Steinkraus estate in CT at which Mr. Handler admitted: "Since I only hear good things about you in representing the principles of the school according to our tradition, I will forgive you for your rash actions and I wish you good luck for the future."

Colonel Handler behaved the way he always behaved, like a true gentleman.