Grand Prix CDI3* Tolbert

Perhaps Therese Nilshagen has found a successor to her long-standing successful partner Dante Weltino in the ten-year-old Navarro. He was certainly outstanding in terms of quality, but Navarro also had a few moments in Tolbert today that made you sit up and take notice.

The black stallion is a typical descendant of his sire Negro – massive in appearance, but light-footed and elastic in movement. Therese Nilshagen presented the Hanoverian stallion in a predominantly relaxed manner, with secure contact, well collected, permeable and with highlights, for example in the passages and pirouettes. In the long term, she still needs to work on the flow in the traversals and the longitudinal bend in general. She also needs to support the stallion quite clearly in the piaffe, but the beginnings are there.

72.935 percent is by far the best result the pair has ever achieved.

Well-established duo in second place

A pair that has been competing together in the arena for much longer than the winners are Denmark’s Karoline Rohmann and her 17-year-old Don Romantic son Jakas Don Louvre. The pair made their first international appearance almost ten years ago at junior level. They have represented their home country four times at the European Young Rider Championships, once in the Young Riders and three times in the U25 camp. They won team bronze in the U21 camp and then three silver medals with the team.

They have been competing regularly in “real” Grand Prix sport for a year now (previously only occasionally), but they have never been able to break the 70 percent barrier in the Grand Prix de Dressage. Until today. With a score of 70.282 percent after a performance that showed their routine and familiarity with each other, they were able to celebrate a personal best and second place.

Beautifully presented young horse no. 1 …

The test was opened by Juliane Brunkhorst and her ten-year-old Louisdor Prize finalist from 2025, DSP Diamante Negro. Until the last quarter of the starting field, it looked as if no one would be able to get past the DeLorean son’s 68.913 percent today. But then the two aforementioned pairs followed in quick succession and finished third. Juliane Brunkhorst must nevertheless have been satisfied with the performance of her great young hope. And they were happy with her.

Watching the two of them is simply fun. Nothing is forced, nothing is squeezed or pulled. Instead, Brunkhorst guides the elastic dark bay through the task with feeling and skillfully helps him through hairy moments such as the second piaffe, in which he didn’t seem to find his diagonal beat. The gelding’s piaffe could one day be a real highlight, as rhythmic, elastic, active and with a clear bend in the haunches as he is already showing in parts. At the moment, they are still very forward and one would also like to see the passages more closed in the long run. It’s nice that Brunkhorst obviously wants to give him time until he has the strength to do this himself, instead of trying to force it by influencing him.

… and no. 2

The pair in fourth place (68.630), Charlott-Maria Schürmann and her Oldenburg mare Dante’s Pearl by Dante Weltino, are also still in the making. The black mare has pretty much been born with everything a great dressage horse needs and Schürmann makes her shine thanks to her solid basic training and sensitive performance. At least in phases. Because when you have a finely tuned horse and are not riding with the handbrake on, sometimes misunderstandings happen.

The mare jumped briefly twice in collected trot. In the actually wonderfully flowing and supple traversals, she got stuck briefly to the right. She lost the beat in the second piaffe. In the passages, she occasionally showed signs of tension.

The highlights were once again the relaxed forward jumps in the series and especially the balanced pirouettes on a small circle.

Conclusion: lots of really great moments, but still plenty of room for improvement – but it was only their second CDI3* appearance.

You can find all the results from Tolbert here.