Raphael Netz – The Story of an Exceptional Talent

Raphael “Raphi” Netz has always had a clear vision of what he wants to achieve. “I want to become one of the best dressage riders in the world. By that I mean I want to do justice to every horse, give my best with each one, and make sure they’re happy. Because that’s how I’ll do them justice.”

Today, five years later, we can say: Mission accomplished! The nomination for Aachen is set. But even if the World Championships hadn’t worked out, Netz could still call himself one of the best. After all, who is the best rider? The one with the most medals? Or the one who, through good training and riding, makes every horse more graceful, content, and responsive?

Little Brother Aki

Raphael Netz managed to do this even as a child. He was nine when, after years of riding school horses and sharing ownership of horses, he finally convinced his parents that his “obsession with horses” wasn’t just a passing fad. Where did his passion for horses come from? No one knows. No one except the middle of three siblings was interested in the four-legged creatures. But little Raphi would already go wild in his stroller as soon as a tailed creature with four hooves appeared nearby. So now it was time for his very first horse.

“We were like brothers”

The Netz family took a trip to a horse sales stable. There was a whole row of horses in the pasture, all waiting for a new home. But one of them—a Haflinger—immediately became friendly and followed the Netz family around. The pony and the boy had made their choice. But don’t you usually take a test ride? No problem there either. A bridle and a saddle were found somewhere, strapped onto the pony, and the boy was hoisted onto its back. Two laps around the circle—it was a good fit, so they bought the pony. The Netz family didn’t find out until later that Aki—or Akatenao—was only three years old and hadn’t even been broken in yet. But so what? The pony was sweet, and the boy was happy. From then on, the two shared their lives together. “We were like brothers,” says Raphael Netz today.

However, the older of the two was already quite ambitious back then. And because Aki’s talent for jumping was limited, Raphi focused on introducing his little brother to the secrets of dressage training. But it wasn’t enough for Raphi to simply teach Aki how to turn left and right or to speed up and slow down. He wanted to achieve something.

From the warm-up arena in Wiesbaden to the World Championships in Aachen

As a Wiesbaden native with a passion for horses, the Pentecost tournament was a must-attend event. He would sit there at the arena for hours, soaking up what the pros were doing. “Then I’d go home and try to ride it myself.” It’s that simple. The two worked their way through the training scale in record time. When Raphi was 13 and Aki was seven, they competed in their first S-level dressage event. Just imagine that.

And he’s been doing all this without a coach, since Raphi’s riding instructor had called it quits after he reached Class L. With his talent and ambition, her student had outgrown her. Instead, in addition to his lesson over Pentecost, he used the internet to learn from videos of his idols. Clearly with success, because aside from the fact that he competed in his first S-level dressage competition at age 13 as a self-taught rider, Netz was accepted into the state squad.

Jessi’s Instagram Discovery

And so the years passed, and the pony days came to an end. Long before that, Raphi—alongside Aki—had been given ponies by other owners to ride, ponies whose breeding goals more clearly predestined them for the world between A and C. He made it onto the national team, but never made it to the European Championships.

When his time with ponies came to an end, the question arose: What next? Because for Raphi, there was no doubt that horses were his life. It was 2016, and he was 17, when a message popped up in his email inbox from Jessica von Bredow-Werndl. Raphi: “I thought it was a fake.” It wasn’t.

Thanks to Aki in Aubenhausen

While browsing Instagram, the future four-time Olympic champion stumbled upon some equestrian videos online and was impressed. “Wow, he really has a feel for it,” she thought at the time. And since she and her brother were looking for a rider for Aubenhausen, she reached out to him via email to ask if he could imagine moving to Bavaria. Shortly thereafter, Netz was on a train, demonstrating his riding skills for the Werndls.

It must have been a similar “aha” moment to the one he had with Aki in the pasture. The chemistry was right. They came to an agreement, and Raphael Netz took his first step toward the World Championship when he moved to the tranquil town of Aubenhausen.

King Costi

One of the first horses entrusted to Raphael Netz by the Werndl siblings was the gelding Lacoste, “Costi.” A challenging horse. When Netz broke him in, the Locksley II son was competing at the M level. In their first competition, they finished last with a score of 57 percent. “At first, he’d flinch if you even looked at him the wrong way,” said Netz. With his characteristic intuition—but above all, his creative ideas—he managed to coax the gelding out of his shell. One year after their rocky start to their competitive partnership, they won their first S-level freestyle at the same competition with a score of 75 percent.

The Premier Class: Grand Prix

The transition to Grand Prix competition was yet another challenge. “At first, we only did piaffes in the woods. And when we turned off the track—not toward the woods, but toward the arena—he started bucking like crazy.” Where other riders would probably have gotten frustrated or lost their confidence, Raphi felt a sense of joy. “I was so happy that he’d become so self-assured!” Backed by that self-assurance, the pair eventually made their mark in the S*** class as well.

Raphi competed in his first championship with Lacoste: the 2019 U25 European Championships, where they won gold as a team. A year later, they even won bronze in the U25 Grand Prix at the European Championships—and that with a horse that didn’t exactly seem born to win, neither in terms of his attitude nor his natural talent. But Netz had found the key to his heart and his ambition: “As a rider, you have to influence Lacoste immensely without him realizing that you’re outsmarting him.”

Needless to say, the horse was never able to replicate the successes he had with Netz under subsequent riders. But he’s not the only one.

Elastico, the Rocker

Raphael Netz won his first European Championship individual gold medal riding the KWPN stallion Elastico. As beautiful as the black horse was, his personality was more like that of a Hells Angel; according to Netz, he was “a real stallion” who made it quite clear when he didn’t want to do something.

Akane Kuroki of Japan had purchased Elastico, who was ready for the Grand Prix, in the Netherlands as a potential partner for the Tokyo Olympics. She wanted to prepare for the Games in Aubenhausen. But as it turned out, Elastico was too challenging for her. So Raphael Netz took him under his saddle to help train him. A perfect match.

“We met halfway,” says Netz, describing his journey from being a player who would refuse to play when he wasn’t in the mood to winning two gold medals and one silver at Euro 2021.

Elastico was later sold to Austria, where he played in two more European Junior Championships. He never won another medal.

Off to Camelot

Raphael Netz competed in his third European Championship in the U25 division in 2022 with Ferdinand BB, the second horse of his boss Jessica von Bredow-Werndl, who took the season off because she was expecting her second child. Riding the Florencio son, Netz won three gold medals. This marked the end of his U25 era, and he was poised to take the next big step: moving up to the senior ranks. He was fortunate to have Sonja Krall, who continued to support him even after he left Aubenhausen and struck out on his own in 2024—and who is herself trained by him.

Sonja Krall: More Than Just a Patron

Sonja Krall invested in the KWPN gelding Great Escape Camelot in 2023. She also owns Netz’s World Cup partner this year, the Dante Weltino son Dieudonné. Unlike this Dante Weltino son, who was still virtually untrained when Netz began riding him, Great Escape Camelot had already enjoyed Grand Prix success with Swiss rider Estelle Wettstein and had also achieved a handful of scores over 70 percent. With Netz, he reached new heights, scoring 73.152 percent in his very first Grand Prix. In 2024, they qualified for the World Cup Final, and again in 2026.

What sets Netz and Camelot apart is their solid foundational training—for both rider and horse. As the late national team coach Jonny Hilberath once said, “Raphi is a command center in the saddle.” By that, he meant Netz’s independent, balanced seat, which allows him to give aids with maximum precision. With these aids, he wins the horses over mentally and improves them physically in a way that is rarely seen.

Monitoring for Success

The same is true of Camelot. Netz has succeeded in making the gelding shine in the arena. There aren’t too many international Grand Prix horses that are presented with such steady rhythm, almost always completely relaxed, and consistently with exemplary contact. It’s easy to forgive Camelot for not being a natural at the piaffe. He’s a good example of the truism that dressage is there for the horse, and not the other way around. Netz’s philosophy? The exterior follows the interior.

“I have to be able to control myself. Because if you can’t control yourself, how are you supposed to control 600 kilograms beneath you?” And: “We establish a dialogue through our seat and our aids. If you’re emotional or stressed, your seat becomes unclear, communication suffers, and your riding suffers as a result.”

And that says it all.