Belgium’s Justin Verboomen rode virtually unnoticed by the public for years. You had to be an insider among insiders to have heard of him. And suddenly he was there. At the latest when he competed as No Name for the first time at the CHIO Aachen and immediately secured himself a place on the board of the eternal best, the famous winner’s board next to the entrance to the jumping stadium, everyone knew him. And everyone wanted to know: Who is this 38-year-old who came out of nowhere?

Teacher Lusitano

The facts are quickly told. Verboomen was introduced to horses as a child by his father. As he was a big fan of Lusitanos and classical riding training, Justin Verboomen initially rode mainly the baroque beauties from Portugal. The experience he gained from training them benefits him today. Back then, he worked at a Belgian Lusitano stud farm, was able to choose the horses he wanted to ride and trained them from remonte to Grand Prix. However, without competing much. “I am really grateful and happy that I was able to ride these horses. As a rule, they are not as physically strong as warmbloods. So you really have to pay attention to their psyche and make sure you don’t overtax them. You have to find ways to help them rather than just challenge them,” Verboomen sums it up. It’s easy to work out how helpful these experiences are. After all, every warm-blooded horse has its own individual strengths and weaknesses. The fact that Verboomen’s concept works is proven not only by Zonik Plus, but also by his World Cup runner-up from Mechelen, Djembe de Hus.

The discovery between dinner and the flight home

Zonik Plus may be a Rhinelander and not a Lusitano, but Verboomen discovered him in his native Portugal. He had searched the whole of Europe for a Lusitano with Grand Prix potential as a sport horse for himself. But either the horses were too expensive or the MOT was too bad. Portugal was his last hope. But here, too, he was disappointed. Somewhat disillusioned, he sat in a restaurant with friends and told them about his dilemma. A neighbor at the table listened and said he might have a horse for him. It was already 5 p.m. and a return flight left the same evening. But Verboomen didn’t hesitate for long and gave it a chance. This is how he got to know the two-and-a-half-year-old Zonik Plus, brought him to Belgium, trained him and turned him into the best dressage horse in the world at the moment.

In search of the ideal feeling

Aachen winner, European champion, hard to believe that it was still possible to top this season. But Verboomen and Zonik Plus actually went one better at the Top 12 Final in Frankfurt. Here they met their closest European Championship rivals, Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour with Mount St. John Freestyle and Isabell Werth with Wendy de Fontaine. And as in Crozet, they left both of them behind – even though it was particularly close in the freestyle. Both times Verboomen and his black horse beat their personal best. However, this is not important to Verboomen. For him, it’s not about getting more points from tournament to tournament, but about being able to showcase his nine-year-old super talent that little bit better. “The feeling is more important to me than winning,” he says. When he came out of the arena in the Festhalle, he didn’t even want to know his scores. He would rather talk to his trainer Claudia Kircheiss, his sister (who was also his groom until after the European Championships), his friends and his current groom about their impressions of his test. Verboomen is a perfectionist. “There are still so, so, so many things I want to improve with him,” he emphasized Today there was still some tension in the horse and we have to work on the straightness. That’s easy at home. But at the show it’s something else.”

In the meantime, Zonik Plus has developed into a show professional. Anyone who has followed the World Championships for Young Dressage Horses closely in recent years will know that Zonik Plus came sixth at the World Championships for Young Dressage Horses in 2022. Those were exciting times, as his rider reports. “As a six and seven-year-old, he was like a lion at the show!” He wasn’t aggressive, but he was terribly nervous in the face of all the strange horses, impressions, etc. That has improved a lot. In the meantime, he has become calmer from show to show. “He is very relaxed here!” Verboomen praised the accommodation for the horses in Frankfurt. Anyone who took a look behind the scenes could see the two of them walking behind the Festhalle, Zonik Plus prancing happily alongside his rider, who let him do his thing in a very relaxed manner.

Classic lesson in Mechelen

Watching Justin Verboomen with Zonik Plus in Frankfurt was a pleasure. It was fun. Watching Justin Verboomen with Djembe de Hus in Mechelen was thought-provoking. Not because the performance with the Oldenburg Damon Hill son was any worse, quite the opposite. Djembe de Hus, now eleven years old, is a wonderful horse, but very different from Zonik Plus, less energetic, less present, less self-confident and proud. But Verboomen did in Mechelen exactly what he described in Frankfurt with regard to the training of the Lusitanos: He took him by the hand, so to speak, and guided him through the first freestyle of his life.

The gelding is at the beginning of his Grand Prix career. He has only been with Verboomen since May and is to be sold. Hopefully he will find a new home where he will be given the time he needs to develop with the same sensitivity. What Verboomen presented with the chestnut in Mechelen was classical riding at its best, with the result that an unsure horse became a trusting, willing partner within one test. Not everything was perfect yet. But everything was on the right track. It was clear to see: Verboomen only ever demanded as much as Djembe de Hus was willing and able to give.

Dressage should be easy, uncomplicated. It is fair to assume that every rider strives for this with their horse, whether at A or Grand Prix level. Justin Verboomen reminded us in Mechelen that there is only one way to achieve this goal: the classical way, which respects the individual horse with all its psychological and physical requirements. You have to thank him for that. Because that is rarer than it should be. And that is exactly what makes you think. We must not only thank Verboomen for this, but also pay tribute to the judges who placed him second with Zonik Plus in Mechelen as an unknown quantity and now again with Djembe de Hus.