“I’ve only had this horse with me in the stables since February I think”, reports Holger Wulschner jubilantly, “and I know that lots of people wanted to ride this horse.” The horse in question is Cassalvano, a nine-year-old Holstein gelding who, as yet, is rather short on experience. But that all seemed far from the Holstein gelding’s mind today as he managed to “deposit” some highly valuable World Rankings points into his rider’s “account”, thanks to a win in the Lübzer Championship. In total, 56 pairs competed in the prestigious test at the Redefin Horse Show, with 14 of them reaching the final round, having managed to steer clear of faults in the previous round. And the final round was fiercely contested under the keen eyes of thousands of spectators.
Holger Wulschner from Passin had his work cut out as, amongst others, two-time Derby winner Nisse Lüneburg from Hetlingen also made it to the final round, piloting Luca Toni. The eleven-year-old gelding has only been ridden by Lüneberg for the past few weeks, “is already a special horse”, according to his rider, and is owned by Charlotte von Rönne. Denise Svensson (Sweden) introduced the OS gelding into sport. Despite this “Dream Team” being a very recent pairing, they promptly went on to take second place in the Lübzer Championship. Third place went to Hamburg’s Janne Friederike Meyer-Zimmermann, who was full of praise not only for her horse, Büttner`s Minimax, but also for the Horse Show itself: “I have to say that we really do enjoy fantastic conditions here and should be really happy to have such a tournament, with all the opportunities it offers, at our disposal.”
The top three riders in the championship will all be riding different horses in the Deutsche Kreditbank AG Grand Prix on Sunday. Holger Wulschner will be competing with the defending champion horse BSC Cha Cha Cha, Nisse Lüneburg will be putting his faith in mare Alina, and Janne Meyer-Zimmermann plans to engage the services of Soccero for the contest.
Thiele Glass Prize victory for a young rider from Lower Saxony
A 17-year-old guest from Lower Saxony won the Thiele Glass Prize, the M class style jumping test for juniors and young riders, with his mare Chacco Belle. Thies Johannsen from Buxtehude secured top spot in the test with a score of 8.5. “This place is a seriously cool setting”, enthused Thies with wonder. “We’ve known Chacco Belle for so long. It’s so much fun riding her, and I’ve already had lots of success with Chacco Belle.” Former Junior European Champion Christoph Maack from Kirch-Mummendorf and D`Olympic daughter Dyleen took second place in the test. Maack went on to add another string to his bow. The young rider and Dyleen came eighth in the international Lübzer Championship – his first appearance in world-ranking jumping at the Redefin Horse Show…