| Bronze for the German team in A Coruña
Last weekend, Sofie and the 11-year-old Just Be Gentle made their way to A Coruña, Spain for the European Show Jumping Championships. Together with Marcus Ehning, Sophie Hinners, Richard Vogel and Hans-Dieter Dreher, Christian was once again part of the German championship team. The vet check for all European Championship horses and the warm-up class commenced on the Tuesday, followed by the first class on Thursday. The championships started with a time trial over 150cm. Although Just Be Gentle was still a little impressed by the atmosphere, the pair still proved their skill with a fast and clear round, which ultimately meant 9th place out of the 89 starters. The pairs time was converted into 1.32 penalty points. The best German in the opening competition was Richard Vogel with United Touch, who only had 0.01 penalty points from the time jumping phase. This placed the German team in 2nd place in the team ranking after the first day.
The second day of the European Championships continued successfully: the German team led by Otto Becker finished the first round of the team final without a single penalty point. The leading team from Great Britain also finished the day without any penalties, although Matthew Sampson and Medoc de Toxandria were eliminated from the triple combination. Matthew Sampson’s teammates Ben Maher was penalty-free as the starting rider and Donald Whitaker and Scott Brash also remained clear. This meant that the team from Great Britain remained on course for gold ahead of the team final, closely followed by Germany in 2nd place. Thanks to Just Be Gentle and Christian's penalty-free round, they also remained on course for the medal individually with just 1.32 penalty points from the time jumping.
On Friday, the German team competed for the team medals in the second round of the team final over 160cm. Marcus Ehning and Coolio were the first German pair to go and sadly had a rail, which increased the pressure on the remaining team riders. Sophie Hinners and Richard Vogel delivered a confident clear round for the team classification. While Christian and Just Be Gentle had an unfortunate knockdown at the triple bar, which added four penalty points to the German team rank.
The previously leading team from Great Britain also had to accept four penalty points for the overall standings. For Belgium, only one time fault was added, resulting in the gold medal for the Belgian team. Silver went to the team from Great Britain and the German team led by Otto Becker took home the bronze medal.
In the individual classification, Christian and Just Be Gentle's knockdown threw the pair back to 20th place ahead of the individual final on Sunday, in which the best 25 riders from the first three competitions qualified. Even with the safe ride on Sunday, in which only one time penalty point was added to the pair's results, was not enough to reach the last round of the best 12 pairs.
Christian and the 11-year-old Just Be Gentle finished the European Show Jumping Championships with a bronze medal with the German team and 17th place in the individual classification.
Richard Vogel and United Touch secured the gold medal in the individual classification after a perfect week. In the end the pair finished with 0.01 penalty points from the first time jumping competition. The silver medal went to Great Britain's Scott Brash with Hello Folie and bronze went to Gilles Thomas and Ermitage Kalone from Belgium.
In addition to the European Championship competitions, the riders also had the opportunity to bring one or two more horses to A Coruña for the 3* classes. Alongside Just Be Gentle, the 8-year-old Viki van Gogh and the 10-year-old Chageorge also made the trip to Spain.
Already in the first competition on Friday over 1.35m, Viki van Gogh delivered a clear round and secured a placement. Chageorge also showed a confident and clear round in his first class over 1.45m. On Saturday, both horses continued to impress in their respective classes. Viki van Gogh placed fifth in the 1.45m competition. Later, Chageorge competed in the 3* Grand Prix and qualified for the jump-off with a clear round. Six out of the 32 pairs finished the first round without faults and advanced to the jump-off. As the first pair to go, Christian and Chageorge delivered a fast and clear round. Only Daniel Coyle with Daydream and Abdel Saïd with Calvary were quicker, which meant a third-place finish for the pair from Riesenbeck in the 3* Porsche Grand Prix of A Coruña.
All results from A Coruña can be found here:
