Stuttgart – 2002 was the year of the first winner of the Indoor Derby in the Hanns Martin Schleyer Halle and late on Wednesday evening the same person won the eventing class for the Prize of the Firma Peter Hahn for the second time: Frank Ostholt. Riding Air Jordan, a 16-year-old gelding, the 2008 Olympic Team Champion, 2006 Team World Champion and 2011 European individual bronze medal winner raced around the difficult course in 77.77 seconds. In going clear, the 36-year-old director of the German equestrian centre in Warendorf pipped his countryman Jan Büsch, who had also gone clear on his 13-year-old Hanoverian gelding Napoli but in a time of 77.78 seconds.
A blunder at the second obstacle cost eventing World and European Champion Michael Jung the victory. After completing the course on top of Vincent TSF, a nine-year-old Trakehner gelding, in 80.69 seconds, the man from nearby Horb had to be content with a third place finish in front of the 8,000 capacity crowd in the Hanns Martin. Jung has already won the eventing competition at the STUTTGART GERMAN MASTERS on five occasions. Four of those wins came in the past four years.
The fourth rider to go caused a moment of shock. German Jürgen Allgöwer’s eight-year-old grey mare Wellerin de Waidhof stumbled at the 14th obstacle before falling and landing on its rider. Though Allgöwer was stretchered off after receiving medical treatment, he waved to the crowd and called out loudly, “everything’s OK”.
The diagnosis in the Klinik Bad-Cannstatt showed a comminuted fracture of the right wrist. The mare was uninjured.
