“Thank you, beautiful Dalera,” is the way Jessica von Bredow-Werndl expressed her gratitude to TSF Dalera BB after winning the dressage Grand Prix at Aachen on Thursday, and she had the chance to say it again today, after another victory, this one in the Grand Prix Special.
Jessica von Bredow-Werndl and Dalera. (Photo courtesy CHIO Aachen)
It was her 10th triumph in a row since November 2022, with time off between January and the FEI World Cup final in April while she was on maternity leave.
There were a few bobbles this morning; the marks of 6 she got in the collected walk transition into the piaffe, and uncharacteristic 4’s and 5’s for a miss in the flying changes between the canter pirouettes.
“It’s not so easy when you try to be so light in the aids,” said the Olympic champion.
“I made two wrong decisions which ended up in two big mistakes,” explained Jessica.
“In the transition from the collected walk to the piaffe, I collected Dalera too much into transition to the piaffe. And with the one-tempis on the center line, I waited too long.” The rider from Bavaria said both mistakes were her fault: “Dalera was amazing; I wasn’t,” she emphasized.
The very refined Dalera, a 16-year-old Trakehner by Easy Game, made up for the mishaps stepping as lightly as if she were dancing on a cloud.
As expected, Jessica’s score of 81.021 led the way to a German team victory (458.285). Denmark (460.097) was second despite the best efforts of Great Britain’s Charlottes, Dujardin and (Lottie) Fry, who were the pillars of the third-place British team (459.756).
Charlotte Dujardin is still getting to know Imhotep.
Charlotte Dujardin and Imhotep. (Photo courtesy CHIO Aachen)
“He is making such good progress as the moment and is gaining more and more strength and expression,” she explained about the Dutch warmblood, marked at 80.787.
World Champion Lottie, riding her Olympic mount, the Dutchbred Everdale, rather than her world’s mount, Glamourdale, finished fourth with a score of 79.574. Maybe we’ll see Glamourdale face off with Dalera at the European Championships this summer.
Third place went to the best Danish pair, Nanna Skodborg Merrald, with the Oldenburg-bred gelding, Zepter by Zack with a score of 80.340 percent.
The horse was schooled by Daniel Bachmann Andersen. When Daniel left the Blue Hors Stud, Zepter was intended as a schoolmaster for a young rider, but he also left. So Nanna, took over the gelding; together they were second at the FEI World Cup finals in Omaha.
Click here for individual results, and on this link for team results.
Aachen didn’t go well for the U.S. team, which finished last of eight nations. Chalk it up to a learning experience.
“There are certainly things we will take away from this competition and look at moving forward as a program,” said U.S. technical advisor Debbie McDonald.
“It wasn’t the result or marks we wanted coming into this competition, but each of these combinations knew the areas of improvement that need focus in their training and have clear takeaways after this week, so they can come back better and stronger.”
Bright notes for U.S. dressage came in non-team classes. Today, Christian Simonson finished out his Young Rider career with a third place on Son of a Lady in the freestyle, earning 75.660 percent. The other American in the class, Erin Nichols, finished 10th on Elian Royale (72.235).
Christian was ninth with a 70.177 percent on Zeaball Diawind in the Intermediate I. He acquitted himself well among big-time competition.Olympic multi-medalist Charlotte Dujardin won with the promising Times Kismet (78.294), while German Frederic Wandres had an impressive performance with Quizmaster FRH (75.441).
Adrienne Lyle, an Olympic medalist who is a protege of Debbie’s, trained Christian remotely because she is six months pregnant and couldn’t make the trip to Germany.
The music Christian used for his freestyle was what he rode to with his first Young Rider horse. It’s a full circle kind of thing, he noted, calling it “a good farewell for my Young Rider career.”
With Zeaball, “it was more a real weekend of experience, getting my growing pains out of the way. It was just `give me a lot of time in the ring in Aachen,’ which is something I hope will pay dividends…years from now.”
In the four-in-hand driving, the USA’s only representative, Chester Weber, lost his way in the marathon and was eliminated.
“Today we had an unfortunate error of course. I take full responsibility for this mistake,” stated Chester, who had won the dressage phase, “and am sorry that I let my team and my horses down. In life, we are suffering or learning and I choose to use this setback as a springboard for a comeback.”
Click here for individual driving results.
Aachen is a show like no other, and if I had to offer just one example, it would be this evening’s MERKUR Casino-Cup in the vast Deutsche Bank Stadium. The class is a contest among multi-national teams of three; an eventer, who rides a course of solid jumps and a tour of the lake in the middle of the stadium; a show jumper who competes over a regular course of colored poles and a four-in-hand, maneuvering around a set-up like the obstacles on a marathon course, as well as negotiating a route through a pair of cones after the eventer piled on the carriage.
It is all for fun, with the crowd cheering and clapping to music non-stop for a refreshing break from the serious competition.
The top three teams in the combo class delighted the audience.
The music fit the competitors; Australian eventer Andrew Hoy, for instance, rode to “I come from the Land Down Under.”
That was also appropriate for the driver with whom he was paired. World Number One Boyd Exell–who won the marathon today–is an Australian as well. Joined by Swedish show jumper Frederik Spetz, they topped the combo competition with a score of 165.28. Right behind was Bram Chardon, a rival of Boyd’s and the son of another of Boyd’s great rivals, Ijsbrand Chardon (second in the marathon). Bram was teamed with show jumper Jur Vrieling and Belgian eventer Lara de Liedekerke-Meir for a score of 165.85.
Sunday is the Aachen finale, with the Grand Prix dressage freestyle and the Rolex Grand Prix. Will McLain Ward win the competition, which has long been his ambition? The pressure is on, because he took the first two legs of the Rolex Grand Slam of Show Jumping, and a victory in Aachen on HH Azur would give him an extra million Euros to spread around for the feat of taking three majors in a row.
Check back Sunday evening and we’ll tell you all about it.
