Second Place for Marie Sohler and Global Player OLD in the Intermédiaire II Class at Ankum

In 2022, Global Player OLD, the former Oldenburg champion stallion, became World Champion among six-year-old dressage horses with Eva Möller. In 2023, he won silver at the World Championships for seven-year-olds with Leonie Richter. In 2024, he helped Marie Sohler win the title at the Junior European Championships in dressage. In 2025, the pair ventured into their first S-level competitions and were right up there at the front from the very start. As of today, they had not yet competed in a single tournament in 2026. They had a different goal: making the leap to the S*** class. They took that leap today and were richly rewarded.

In the Lion’s Den

You might think Ankum is a wonderful tournament for a first start at the S*** level—no spectators, no ClipmyHorse. But what there certainly is, is competition—and plenty of it. Twenty-one pairs competed in the Intermédiaire II today, including horses that have already made a splash elsewhere, especially since the class was open to all age groups.

The victory ultimately went to a pair that had already been seen in the Louisdor Prize stages and had been among the standout performers there: Friederike Tebbel and her ten-year-old Oldenburg gelding Serious by San Amour. The highly elegant black-bay horse, with his feather-light piaffes and passages, did not manage to qualify for Frankfurt. His nerves got the better of him on more than one occasion. However, that does not detract from his talent. Today, the judges awarded the pair 72.325 percent and unanimously placed them at the top of the field.

scored

over 70 percent right off the bat

. Behind them, there was only one other pair that received more than 70 percent—that is, a “pretty good”—from all three judges, and that was Marie Sohler and the now 10-year-old Global Player OLD. All in all, they scored 70.658 percent. They would have scored even higher if the pair hadn’t made any mistakes in the single changes.

A small excerpt from the score sheet: For the first passage, they received scores of 8.0, 7.0, and 7.5 from the three judges—Jürgen Böckmann, Nicole Nockemann, and Ralph Schmidt. They scored the first piaffe with 6.0, 6.5, and 7.0. All three judges rated the transitions as “pretty good,” or 7.0. The passage then earned another 8.0 and, this time, two 7.5s, while the subsequent piaffe received a 6.0 from all three judges. All in all, a very promising start.

The pirouettes, which also count double in all Grand Prix programs, received scores ranging from 6.0 to 7.0, while the double changes received two scores of 8.0 and one of 7.0.

All in all, then, a promising start for 19-year-old Marie Sohler and the 10-year-old stallion.

Even more s*** newcomers

Another U21 rider who is new to the S*** division is Florentina Jöbstl from Austria. However, she has an experienced four-legged partner by her side: the KWPN stallion Elastico, who once helped Raphael Netz secure his first U25 European Championship title in the individual competition. Florentina and Elastico have only been a team since this year. After the 17-year-old son of Johnson was initially presented by Florentina’s brother Paul in the U25 division, he competed last year with her twin sister Fanny in the Young Riders category. This year, Florentina took the reins for the first time. The pair won an S-level dressage competition in Isterberg this year. Today, in the S*** class in Ankum, they scored 68.114 percent and finished fourth.

Squeezing in between the two newcomers was Denmark’s Valentin Munkedahl, riding the eight-year-old Quaterhit son Quatro Guldbjerg, who had finished the course with a score of 69.649 percent. The pair, however, had already competed at the S*** level previously.

You can find all the results from Ankum here.