Dhe memory of Tokyo’s golden days couldn’t be further away than now. With masks in front of their sweaty but happy faces, Dorothee Schneider, Jessica von Bredow-Werndl and Isabell Werth stood on the podium of the dressage stadium of the Tokyo Olympic Games on July 27, 2021 in tropical temperatures and hung their gold medals around their necks. It was the 14th German Olympic gold in dressage. Shortly thereafter, von Bredow-Werndl and her mare Dalera also secured individual gold ahead of Isabell Werth with Bella Rose.
It was below zero in Frankfurt this Friday, and there was still some snow on the parking areas of the exhibition grounds. At the end of the year, the trio from Tokyo started at the International Festival Hall Riding Tournament, all three with different horses than in Japan. The gold guarantors of the German dressage sport look back on a year full of changes. Isabell Werth, the seven-time Olympic champion, recently said goodbye to her successful mares Weihegold and Bella Rose when they retired. With the stallion Quantaz, she had developed a new championship horse for this year’s World Championships in Denmark, but the stallion was not yet able to match the performances of the two mares. Nonetheless, she finished fourth in the singles and bronze with the team.
With incredible coolness
In Frankfurt, the 53-year-old won the Grand Prix, the first international dressage test at this year’s Festhallen horse show, with the gelding Emilio. And, as so often, with unbelievable coolness. Right at the beginning of their test, the loudspeakers in the hall went crazy. A sound like fireworks being let off under the dome pierced the silence. Werth and Emilio paused, waited until their technique was back on track, continued undeterred with the test and won it with the best result of the day of 74.631 percent. “Stopping was the best option for me at that moment,” Werth said afterwards, “and fortunately Emilio also saw it that way that we didn’t move and waited calmly.” The gelding put up with the disturbance well and had an extra portion fodder earned.
Dorothee Schneider had previously completed the Grand Prix without interruption with the gelding Faustus and finished the test in fourth place with a score of 72.065 percent – just behind tournament director Matthias Alexander Rath, her club colleague from the Frankfurt show stable Schwarz Gelb, who competed with the stallion Destacado and 72, reached 87 percent.
Tears in my eyes – with joy
Schneider has taken part in the Olympic Games, World Championships and European Championships since 2016 and has won team gold each time, and in 2019 even silver at the European Championships in individual and freestyle. This year she was not part of the team for the first time in a long time. Her Olympic and European Championship horse Showtime was injured at the last inspection tournament a few weeks before the start of the World Championships. The 53-year-old continued to focus on her young horses, qualifying two of them for the junior classes. She won one of them on Thursday with the gelding Dante’s Hit. At home in Framersheim in the Palatinate, she carefully rebuilt Showtime. “Now he’s back in full training and it’s a lot of fun,” she said in Frankfurt with tears in her eyes – with joy. Because: “Showtime is very, very special to me. I enjoy riding this horse. He makes my day sweeter.” Now she doesn’t want to rush anything. She carefully considered starting at the World Cup tournament in Basel at the beginning of 2023 with Showtime.
The two-time Olympic champion in Tokyo, Jessica von Bredow-Werndl, missed the World Championships this year for a particularly good reason: she became a mother for the second time in August. With Dalera she got back into tournament sport in October, won the World Cup in Lyon and the final of the top ten in the world rankings in Stockholm. In Frankfurt she competed with the gelding Ferdinand and finished seventh with 71.13 percent. With her top horse Dalera, she is keeping a close eye on the World Cup finals in April.
At the beginning of September 2023, the European Dressage Championships will take place in Riesenbeck near Münster. One who could then join the team again is Bad Homburg’s Sönke Rothenberger. With the gold trio from Tokyo, he already won European Championship gold in 2019 – at that time with his horse Cosmo. On Friday he presented his young horse Fendi in the Festhalle. The two of them qualified for the final of the Louisdor Prize junior series with a result of 79.553 percent – a new record in this test.
