(acm/mps) “All good things come in threes,” was the maxim of the first round of the BW Bank Indoor Championships on Thursday evening. Only three of the 25 pairings in the unofficial state indoor championships at the 22nd International STUTTGART GERMAN MASTERS Horse Show successfully jumped all twelve fences.
A jump-off between Heiko Rabenstein, Uwe Carstensen and Alexander Schill had to decide the outcome. But one thing was for certain: one of the riders would be the competition’s sixteenth winner for not one of the three had previously triumphed in Stuttgart. The youngster’s celebrations at the end were correspondingly big. The 22-year-old Alexander Schill also went clear in the jump-off on his eight-year-old Oldenburg mare Roxanne in 40.79 seconds. He duly succeeded Paul Hofmann as the indoor champion. Behind Schill, who secured fourth place in the overall qualifying competition when winning the final event in Bisingen, in second place was Uwe Carstensen. Riding Candlelight he went clear in 44.62 seconds. Even quicker was Heiko Rabenstein, who crossed the finishing line in 43.39 seconds but had to content himself with third place after knocking over a fence.
“I was lucky and am proud to have won the class,” said Schill modestly when struggling for words. He is one of three riders from Baden-Württemberg that will wear the state colours over the coming days in the international jumping competitions: “At the moment I’ve got absolutely no idea what I should say. I’m simply overjoyed.” Martin Kuon, Director of Public Relations of the Landesbank Baden-Württemberg, the BW Bank’s umbrella company, on the other hand knew precisely how to rate Schill’s ride: “My congratulations go to Alexander Schill as a worthy winner of the indoor championship.”
Verena Karle from Dettingen also had a reason to celebrate. Though the 23-year-old had some bad luck in the BW Championship when finishing 19th on her gelding Calimero, after winning a total of 10 difficult class S jumping competitions, she was however awarded the Golden Riding Certificate in front of the fantastic 7,600 crowd in the Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle.
