Anticipation is big going into the big international horse show and one thing is certain – the Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle will once again be the meeting place for equestrian athletes from all over the world and their fans. The demand for tickets is also big. “As of today, we’ve already sold more than 45,000 tickets for the nine sessions,” said Andreas Kroll, CEO of the “in.Stuttgart Veranstaltungsgesellschaft” which has been organising the equestrian spectacle in Stuttgart for years now.
The horse show’s three most important competitions in which valuable points for the respective World Cups are at stake are the jumping Grand Prix of Stuttgart with BW-Bank and WALTER solar on Sunday (from 3.00 pm – all times are local) as well as the four-in-hand GERMAN DRIVING MASTER on Saturday from 12.30 pm and later the Dressage Grand Prix Freestyle from 5.00 pm.
Additionally, the region’s top riders will be contesting the jumping BW-Bank Indoor Championship (8.15 pm) and the iWEST Dressage Cup (3.00 pm) on Thursday, the so-called “Baden-Württemberg day”. Scheduled Wednesday afternoon at 3.00 pm is the final – with a jump-off – of the Nürnberger Burg Cup for Baden-Württemberg’s jumping juniors. The classes for up-and-coming riders in the dressage “Piaff-Förderpreis” or in the FEI Jumping Ponies Trophy will take place on Friday (8.00 am) and Saturday (2.15 pm) respectively.
Attractive mixture: show, liberty dressage and the eventing Indoor Derby
Visitors can look forward to a “riding triathlon” at the big opening evening on Wednesday starting at 7.00 pm. Participants from the surrounding region will initially tackle a jumping course before aiming and, if possible, hitting targets on the “shooting range” with laser rifles. To finish off, they will negotiate a “cone slalom” behind the steering wheel of a 4x4.
In the Dog Agility competition contested by pony riders and well-known riders from the region that all form a team respectively with dogs, saddle skills are initially required before the dogs fly round an agility course, often leaving their gasping human teammates trailing far behind. Competing will be several world champions including one of Europe’s most successful juniors, Zoei Strohäker who has been amassing titles and medals ever since winning the gold medal with the German junior team in Finland in 2022. Her coach is her mother Mama Yvonne Strohäker, the boss and trainer at the Paw Kings Park dog school in nearby Jettingen.
Frenchman Jean-François Pignon, 54, has been the epitome of liberty dressage for many years now. Using fine body language that takes years of training, he gets his eight to ten horses to follow his orders. Under his command, they cluster around him forming groups and continually creating new figurations and formations. Jean-François Pignon is the calming influence in their middle. Via little gestures, the master of soft understanding has a big impact.
The international eventing class at the end of the closing evening (9.25 pm) has always been a big crowd attraction. This year, the local hero and last year’s winner Michael Jung, three-time Olympic champion and world champion who has also won seven European championship titles, is aiming to bag the Indoor Derby for a tenth time. Or will German Julia Krajewski, the first woman rider to win the individual eventing Olympic gold medal (Tokyo, 2021), be able to thwart him?
BW-Bank Indoor Championship: the state is envied for its horse show series
Four qualifying events are held in the federal state during the summer months and three results count per rider. This year saw riders battling for a place in the finals in the Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle at the shows in Waldenbuch, Donaueschingen-Immenhöfe, Bietigheim-Bissingen and Bisingen/Hohenzollern. The leader on points was Tim Hoster (61 points) ahead of Tina Deuerer (60) and siblings Leonie (59) and Niklas Krieg (57). Their father, who today is one of the three STUTTGART GERMAN MASTERS horse show directors along with Kai Huttrop-Hage and Carsten Rotermund, managed to win the BW-Bank Indoor Championship back in 1997.
Four qualified riders – Andy Witzemann (2017 and 2018), Markus Kölz (2013), Alexander Schill (2006) and Armin Schäfer (1999) – have already celebrated wins at the the big BW-Bank finale which is basically the unofficial indoor championship for the federal state of Baden-Württemberg. “The BW-Bank Cup is the most important horse show series in the federal state, you could even say the whole of Germany, and the other state associations envy us for it,” said Andy Witzemann once. In the same breath he went on to express his and his fellow riders’ gratitude: ”A big thank-you therefore goes out to the sponsor, the Baden-Württembergische Bank, for supporting us so fantastically right from the start. The BW-Bank has been a partner of the horse show ever since its premiere in 1985 and also supports the four qualifying shows in summer.
The jumping entry list contains high profile names aiming to gain valuable points in Stuttgart for the World Cup Final in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) from 16 to 20 April 2024. Topping the list is the recently crowned European champion Steve Guerdat. The Swiss is currently world ranked No. 5 and also finished sixth with his national team at the continental championships in Milan in September. Pénélope Leprevost (France), the world No. 12 and team Olympic champion in Rio in 2016 has also entered as has Great Britain’s Scott Brash who won team gold in London in 2012 and claimed European team gold in Herning in 2013. The Brazilian Yuri Mansour sprung a surprise when triumphing in June’s Grand Prix of Europe in Aachen, Germany and will be in the saddle in the Schleyer-Halle.
Three German Nations Cup Final winners in Barcelona set to ride in Stuttgart
The line-up also includes top German stars like Hans-Dieter “Hansi” Dreher who was the first Baden-Württemberg rider to win the Grand Prix of Stuttgart in 2013 and Jana Wargers who was a member of the team that placed fifth at the 2022 World Championships in Herning – both were a part of the German team that triumphed in the Nations Cup Final in Barcelona at the end of September. Daniel Deußer, the 2014 World Cup winner and a three-time team silver medallist at European Championships unfortunately had to withdraw due to an injury to his horse. Also in the mix alongside Pius Schwizer, the Swiss national champion on three occasions, is the local hero Mario Walter, a businessman (WALTER solar) and successful rider.
Isabell Werth to appear in the “SWR1 Leute Baden-Württemberg” programme
She is the world’s most successful rider amassing seven Olympic and nine World Championships golds plus 20 European Championship titles – Isabell Werth. The STUTTGART GERMAN MASTERS ambassador is a regular in the Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle and will be a guest in the “Leute” radio show broadcast by the regional SWR1 channel (10.00 am to noon). In Stuttgart, the locally based rider has claimed the Grand Prix Special 16 times and the freestyle nine times.
Dorothee Schneider is another German rider that is always given a warm welcome in the indoor arena in the state capital of Baden Württemberg. She is a two-time gold medallist with the German team at both the Olympic Games (2016, 2021) and the European Championships (2017, 2019) as well as at the 2018 World Equestrian Games. Also competing are other well-known dressage names like compatriot Fabienne Müller-Lütkemeier who triumphed here in the 2014 World Cup freestyle on D’Agostino FRH, Raphael Netz, the three-time gold medallist (individual, team and freestyle) champion at the 2022 U-25 European Championships, and Ann-Kathrin Lindner, the U-25 European Champion (2020) and 2021 German U-25 champion who was also victorious in the iWEST-Cup final in both 2018 and 2019. Atop the wonder stallion Totilas, Matthias Alexander Rath won team silver at the 2013 European Championship in Rotterdam, the Netherlands and bagged 2015 team bronze at the European Championships in Aachen. In Stuttgart, he won the Grand Prix in 2022 plus the Grand Prix Special to thus become the GERMAN DRESSAGE MASTER. Local hero Jasmin Schaudt, the wife of the two-time team Olympic champion (1996, 2000) Martin Schaudt, will be looking to impress in front of her home crowd. Last year she came third in the Grand Prix and fourth in the Special.
Four-in-hand driving wild card for the local driver Michael Brauchle
Germany will be represented in the four-in-hand driving World Cup by Mareike Harms and Michael Brauchle, who has been handed the wild card by the organisers. Both belonged to the German silver medal winning team at the World Championships in Pratoni in summer. They also won team silver at the 2021 European Championships in Budapest (Hungary). The local driver also claimed individual bronze at the 2022 World Championships and also came third at the 2021 and 2023 – in Exloo, the Netherlands – European Championships. The favourite is however once again the six-time world champion Boyd Exell (Australia) who has already celebrated six World Cup wins in Stuttgart. In February, he bagged the World Cup for the tenth time in Bordeaux (France) where Ijsbrand Chardon was a bronze medallist. The Dutchman, a six-time world champion, is also listed three times in the STUTTGART GERMAN MASTERS roll of honour (2007, 2016, 2018). Compatriot Kos de Ronde was victorious in Stuttgart in 2011 and belonged to the Dutch World Championship winning team last year. The fourth foreign contestant is Jérome Voutaz (44), a car mechanic from the French speaking part of Switzerland. An amateur, he is a one-off amongst four-in-hand drivers. He co-owns a garage and only takes the reins in his leisure time. In 2022, he was second behind Boyd Exell.
Equestrian excellence in the dressage for young riders, style jumping and the ponies
Equestrian excellence will not only be on show in the BW-Bank Indoor Championship but also in the other national classes. In the “Piaff-Förderpreis der Liselott Schindling Stiftung” class aimed at fostering dressage (Friday, 8.00 am), the focus will be on young riders as it will for the final class of the NÜRNBERGER Burg Cup for Baden-Württemberg juniors (Wednesday, 3.00 pm), a class M style jumping competition with a jump-off.
For the fifth time already, the schedule includes two international FEI Jumping Ponies Trophy jumping classes for the Prize of Ensinger Mineral-Heilquellen GmbH. They are due to start on Friday at (3.30 pm) and Saturday (2.15 pm) – the latter shall end with a jump-off.
