Germany Wins the Nations Cup for Pony Dressage Riders and Children at the Future Champions; Mixed Results in the Show Jumping Competition

Dressage

Germany’s young dressage riders have a winning streak at the Future Champions. Today, the pony dressage riders and children followed in the footsteps of yesterday’s juniors and young riders, securing their respective Nations Cups.

The ponies kicked things off today. Caroline Roost’s quartet won convincingly with 146.828 points, once again beating Denmark (144.886 points) and the Netherlands (139.829 points). Belgium, Austria, and France took the remaining spots.

In the individual competition, however, it was a Danish pair that left everyone else in the dust: Filippa Jæger Jensen riding Sir Sansibar. The judges awarded her performance a score of 73.543 percent. Filippa is the daughter of the well-known young horse rider Bettina Jæger Jensen, who previously rode for Helgstrand Dressage and had horses such as Sezuan and Franklin under her saddle.

Behind Filippa, the German riders took second through fourth place, led by the successful Rhineland duo Leni-Sophie Gosmann on Diamantini EA WE (73.514 percent). Lilly Kasselmann took third place with Nasdaq FH (73.314 percent). Lilli von Helldorff came in third on Nabucco HW (73.228 percent).

Children

The German U14 riders also secured a clear victory in the competition for riders under 14 on full-size horses. Five teams competed in this event, and the three German riders took second, third, and sixth place in the individual standings. In total, they scored 157.225 percent, leaving Belgium (148.475) and the Netherlands (145.9) behind them.

Also riding for the German team were Lilly Kasselmann, who played a major role in the team’s success with a score of 78.675 percent on her horse Vodka Soda (86.750 percent for the rider’s score, 70.60 percent for the technical score), as well as Antonia Hausmeyer on Gentle van Wittenstein V (78.550, 85.5/71.60) and Linda Schuchmann in the saddle of Figo de Halliers (72.325, 78.250/66.6).

The highest individual score across all categories was achieved by Belgian rider Emilija Rucinskaite on Nice Guy STW with 79.60 percent (87.0/72.2).

U18 Nations Cup Thriller on the Course

It wasn’t just in La Baule that things got exciting today on the course during the U18 Nations Cup, the CSIOJ FEI Jumping Nations Cup Youth for juniors. A total of 13 nations competed here. Round one produced a string of clear rounds, leaving four teams—Great Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, and Finland—in the lead with three clear rounds each. In other words: anything was still possible here.

In the second round, the field was whittled down. The course designer had significantly raised the difficulty level, and it didn’t take long for mistakes to start cropping up. In the end, only two pairs managed to complete the course without any faults twice, and one of them was from the winning team.

In the end, it was the Italian team led by Piero Coata, featuring Ginevra Maria Pellicari and Lexicograaf, Giovanni Votino on Unbreakable van Overis Z, Gabriel Zagni Minucci with Orbit, and Lavinia Lo Bosco on Oberon van den Berg—a team that may not have been among the favorites going in but earned the victory with just eight penalty points. The hero of the day for Italy was Gabriel Zagni Minucci, who completed two clear rounds.

The Netherlands came in second with twelve penalties. Although Germany also had twelve penalty points, its slower time meant it finished in third place.

Eberhard Seemann’s team consisted of his son Lennard Tillmann, the Derby winner, riding Veltiner (0/4), Helena Stormann’s son Tony riding RMF Cinnamo (0/4), Hannah Blandfort on Tara Levista (4/4), and Victoria Schumacher with Noah de Kalvarie (0/4). All in all, a pretty good record, as team manager Seemann also noted.

“Overall, we’re having a very good season with the juniors right now because we have a lot of strong young riders in Germany. Here in Hagen, this was also our final selection event ahead of the European Championships. That’s why I deliberately gave some riders another chance to prove themselves worthy of a nomination. So I’m generally satisfied with third place, even though perhaps a bit more might have been possible.”

In the second, more difficult round, his riders “put in solid performances, even though the mistakes could certainly have been avoided.” He explained, “But in a Nations Cup, there’s always an added element of nervousness that makes the task even more difficult. Overall, the riders did well.”

With Hagen a.T.W.’s result, Germany also retains its top position in the FEI Jumping Nations Cup™ Youth Ranking. After nine out of nine stops, the German junior team leads the overall junior standings.

Young riders

For the young riders, the Nations Cup didn’t go quite as well as hoped. In the end, they racked up 28 faults, which still earned them fourth place out of the eight teams.

Peter Teeuwen had entered the following quartet in the race: Max Paschertz on Foodfox’s Cathilde H (6/12), Emma Bachl and Condolcessa (0/8), Mathies Rüder on Carlesta (4/4), and Tomma Thiesen in the saddle of Django Riff (4/8).

However, it should be noted that the winning Belgian team also had 15 faults, and Italy finished in second place with 21 penalty points, ahead of Ireland with 27 points.

The Belgian winners were Louise Ameeuw on Kaliber (6/0), Jef Peeters on Olina van’t Ruytershof (0/0), Paris Vandousselaere on Chacco’s Girl (5/4), and Mathieu Guery, the son of Olympic rider Jérôme Guery, riding Horizon, who had the best score with nine and 35 faults in both rounds.

You can find all the results from the Future Champions event in Hagen here.