The favourites have already made their mark. Competing in the opening class at the 30th International STUTTGART GERMAN MASTERS Horse Show, Hendrik Lochthowe won the first dressage competition for the Prize of iWest when scoring 71.263 per cent in front of a 6,300 crowd in the Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle on Wednesday afternoon. Like last year, he rode the gelding Meggle’s FS Lennox Louis on whom he placed third in 2013. After four qualifying events in the region, Lochthowe has this time come to Stuttgart as the leader of the series where, after a coming second last year in the final of the iWEST Dressage Cup, he is aiming to top the podium this time around. Second in the Intermediaire I class for local German riders was Vivien Niemann atop the 11-year old Hanoverian stallion Sil Jander (70.947) ahead of Aileen Day in the saddle on the Oldenburg stallion Destino D (69.895).