Stuttgart – A new name on a roll of honour that includes all the top names: World Team Champion Koos de Ronde won the DB SCHENKER GERMAN MASTER with a combined time of 255.14 seconds in front of a sell-out 8,000 crowd in the Hanns Martin Schleyer Halle on Saturday afternoon. The Dutchman received 5,500 Euro prize money for his win in the competition which belongs to the FEI World Cup 2011/2012 DrivingTM series. He now joins the 13-time winner Michael Freund (1994-2006), Ijsbrand Chardon (Netherlands/2007), the Hungarian Jozsef Dobrovitz (2008) and the Australian Boyd Exell (2009 and 2010) on the list of winners. “I’m very pleased with my team of horses,” said the delighted Koos de Ronde, “it’s great my left-sided wheeler did so well.”
World Champion Boyd Exell finished second after the two rounds (255.82 seconds). “My team is getting old. I’ve got to think of the future so I tried out new lead horses here in Stuttgart.” Also very happy with his horses was third-placed Ijsbrand Chardon (263.48), “they were easy to drive today but I let them go a bit once and they turned – straight on would have been better.”
In order behind the top three were Zoltán Lázár (Hungary), Georg von Stein (Germany), Theo Timmerman (Netherlands) and local hero Michael Brauchle. They all failed to qualify for the second round.
