The last starter of the day, Richard Vogel on the 14-year-old stallion United Touch, was already world champion. “I was able to really enjoy the ride,” he said. So much so that he received two time errors that no longer played a role for the team, but dropped him to 14th place and thus ruined his chance of winning a medal for the individual title. The champion will be decided on Sunday among the 25 best in two rounds.
Deußer, on the other hand, took the lead together with the Swiss Steve Guerdat on the 13-year-old mare Dynamix on Belheme with exactly the same score of 0.86 points. If both remain the same, the gold medal will have to be fought for. Deußer has never been so close to his first major championship title. Marcus Ehning (52) on the 13-year-old Coolio is provisionally fourth (1.78) ahead of Sophie Hinners (28) on the eleven-year-old Singclair (1.84), who had to accept a time error according to the motto “Safety before speed”. This means she fell back to fifth place, with Briton Ben Maher on Point Break, the 2021 Olympic champion in Tokyo, currently third. The top is close together: first and eighth place are separated by less than a drop.
With a gap of more than one jumping error, the German show jumpers won the title in Aachen (4.48 penalty points), followed by the Belgians (11.69), who made a fantastic comeback, and the British (12.98). It was the first World Cup gold since 2010, the second for Otto Becker as national coach. Although the Germans were among the favorites, such a confident victory came as a surprise.
A severe weather warning endangered the jumping
In the third and final course that counted for the team, none of the four riders allowed themselves to be dropped. Vogel's time penalty points remained the deleted result, "But we would have won even with Richie's result," said Marcus Ehning. On the 13-year-old Coolio, he was the first German rider to achieve a clear round, like the previous courses. He had already been there in Aachen in 2006 and had experienced a disaster at the Wall with the mare Küchengirl. “I’ve now smoothed out the nick,” he said. She apparently pursued him for 20 years. Coolio sailed unimpressed over the wall, which was modeled after Aachen's Elisenbrunnen. Once the dark brown Holsteiner had to save his rider. Ehning had misjudged a distance, and Coolio was so faced with the next obstacle that he essentially had to screw himself vertically into the air: “I’m incredibly proud of my horse, who gave everything here.”
Not only he, but also national coach Becker was relieved that things had gone so well. Because Becker and Ehning have more in common than trainers and team riders usually do. They are old warriors and, among other things, won Olympic gold together in 2000 in Sydney. He first had to convince the jumping committee of his decision to choose Ehning over the 2024 Olympic champion Christian Kukuk. It's no secret that the private vibes between the two are right, but the performances at the time of nomination were also decisive. “Without Otto I wouldn’t be here,” said Ehning.
Until the last moment, the Aachen organizers had to tremble as to whether the evening Nations Cup competition would even be able to take place. There was a severe storm warning, but initially there were just a few drops of rain and a distant rumble of thunder. It wasn't until the award ceremony that the rain pelted down from the sky and soaked everyone equally, horses, riders and well-wishers. Tournament director Birgit Rosenberg tried to dry the riders at the press conference with terry cloth towels so that no one else would get a cold so close to the finale.
When the individual riders first went into the course, it looked as if course manager Frank Rothenberger had once again been a little too friendly. The day before there had been 45 zero-fault rides, so selection is no longer necessary. But the tide turned when it was the team riders' turn. Promising teams that were hot on the Germans' heels crumbled one by one. Among the British, only Scott Brash and Ben Maher were able to maintain the standard with zero errors.
Things got even worse for the US riders, who had until then still been on the silver course. Katherine Dinan gave up because her gray horse Out of the Blue couldn't find any rhythm, and Lillie Keenan made two mistakes. They could console themselves with the fact that as Olympic hosts they are automatically eligible to compete in 2028. For everyone else, Aachen was also a qualification for Los Angeles. In addition to the medal teams, Italy, Switzerland, Ireland and France secured the L.A. spots. There will be one last chance next year at the European Championships in Waregem, Belgium.
