Charlott-Maria Schürmann and Dante's Pearl win CDI3* Grand Prix in Hagen

Charlott-Maria Schürmann and Dante’s Pearl picked up at Horses & Dreams where they left off ten days ago in the Special in Tolbert: at the top. Hagen is a good place for the pair. They came second in the Nuremberg Burg Pokal qualifier here in 2024 and were able to recommend themselves for the Louisdor Prize Final at the first attempt last year. And now they celebrated their first international Grand Prix victory here. Schürmann and her eleven-year-old Dante Weltino daughter, bred by Kerstin de Neui and in Swiss ownership, scored a whopping 73.652 percent for their performance. This is the personal record to date for the black mare, who was sold at the PSI Auction in 2020 for a hammer price of 335,000 euros.

First pair, immediately the winning ride

Charlott-Maria Schürmann and Dante’s Pearl opened the Grand Prix this morning at 9 o’clock. Before entering the arena, Schürmann wanted to have the mare piaffeed once more. Dante’s Pearl offered Levade, Schürmann refused and insisted on piaffe. That settled the issue. The mare has perhaps never been seen to piaffe as confidently as she did today. Passage is her thing anyway, strong trot and traversals even more so. Only the backing up was a bit hurried today and in walk one wished for more stride through the body. But in canter, the pair then picked up the points they had lost or not received. Elke Ebert even scored a 9 for the relaxed one-jump changes, whereas Sascha Schulz only scored 7.0 for H. Everyone agreed on the overall impression of the ride: 8.0. Well deserved.

Audience favorites

The only pair to also break the 70 percent mark was Helen Langehanenberg and the NRW state stud stallion Zoom. The former World Cup winner, team world and European champion had made use of the new opportunity to ride in snaffle until CDI3*. She presented the twelve-year-old son of Zack very correctly, with, among other things, set and confident diagonal piaffes in time. However, the judges would have liked to have seen more go and initiative from the stallion. The judges gave him 70.979, while the Spectator Judging awarded him a whopping 78.804 percent. Not too many spectators were present.

Hard-fought third place

Laura Strobel’s 15-year-old Westphalian stallion Valparaiso completed a beautiful test. The Vitalis son showed himself to be correct, obedient and willing. He completed the test without any major mistakes and his score of 69.761 percent accurately reflected his overall impression. The same applies to Yara Reichert and Springbank II, who came a close fourth with 652 percent.

Katharina Hemmer and Special Gold PCH could probably have done better. The San Amour-Weihegold son bucked once even before being ridden in and shook his head energetically. But Hemmer, who has known the stallion since his youngster days, quickly had him back on her side.

They began with a beautiful salute and a somewhat restrained reinforcement. The traversals were well bent but could have been a little more flowing. The backwards was willing and supple, but the stallion tipped over in the poll. The second strong trot was again at the lowest limit. Special Gold entered the first piaffe superbly and showed very nice paces. But he couldn’t get back out and into the passage rhythm. This was doubly expensive, as it meant that both the marks for the passage and the transition were lost.

The pair were then able to make up points in the strong walk. The second piaffe-passage tour went much better. Here the elegant black horse showed what he is capable of.

Also in canter – everything was fine until the center line with the pirouettes. Particularly in the one to the right, Special Gold clearly lost diligence and rhythm, which was again doubly expensive because the scores for the pirouettes go times two. With a score of 69.630 percent, they were narrowly beaten by the Bavarian-Swedish duo Reichert/Springbank II and finished in fifth place.

You can find all the results here.