It was Daniel Schneiders’ first ever official World Cup appearance and it ended in a surprising win for the German on Saturday afternoon in the DB SCHENKER GERMAN MASTER. The farrier won the two-round qualifying class belonging to the FEI World CupTM in a total time of 233.49 seconds and the success earned him 5,500 euro prize money. “I was quite lucky. I came here with few expectations and thought I’d land down the field.” But the only real difficulties the 32-year old encountered came after the competition was over: “My horses couldn’t stand still during the victory ceremony but otherwise they were very good.”
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Second in front of the capacity 8,000 crowd in the Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle was the experienced Georg von Stein (238.16/Germany) who praised the victor: “Daniel drove two penalty-free rounds and risked everything in the end.” Last year’s winner and world champion Boyd Exell (242.59) is proud of his pupil: “He’s been training hard.” As far as his own performance was concerned, the Australian smiled and said, “It’s all Michael Freund’s fault. He told me to let my horses run if they were strong but then I couldn’t slow them down.”
For the new course designer, Wolfgang Asendorf (Germany), the World Cup was a challenge. “It’s a big job to build a competitive course in such a big arena and to build it for such a good field.” It’s why he was so pleased with the various lines the drivers took – “it’s always a good sign.”
