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Germany looking strong with three core riders named for World Championships dressage bid

Oscar Williams Oscar Williams

    • Hosts Germany have announced their dressage team for the 2026 World Championships in Aachen, Germany (11–23 August).

    The core of the team that won team gold at the Europeans last summer – Isabell Werth (Wendy de Fontaine), Katharina Hemmer (Denoix PCH) and Frederic Wandres (Bluetooth OLD) – remains unchanged. The only difference is in the fourth spot, where Raphael Netz and Great Escape Camelot have stepped in to replace Ingrid Klimke and Vayron, who didn’t contest the first selection trial and withdrew from contention before the second.

    That change shouldn’t derail Germany’s medal prospects at the World Championships. Raphael’s 2026 grand prix average of 73.50% is actually well clear of the level Ingrid carried into Crozet last summer, when she averaged 72.03% across her three pre-championship grands prix – before a rough day at the Europeans itself, where she managed just 69.35% in a test she later described as the “worst grand prix we’ve done”.

    Raphael, by contrast, has been strikingly consistent all season, never straying more than half a point from his own average across five internationals.

    There had been some early-season talk of Isabell switching to her exciting young stallion Viva Gold OLD, but the pair have consistently campaigned at CDI3*/4* level, whereas Wendy has been favoured for the CDI5*/CDIO circuit – and Viva Gold’s scores haven’t yet closed that gap, even if he’s one to watch on the road to LA28.

    The only real doubt in that core trio for Germany’s dressage team at Aachen 2026 was Katharina Hemmer and her American-owned Denoix, who’ve had a disrupted season.

    The pair have competed at three internationals. First at Lier CDI4* in March, where they won both the grand prix (75.59%) and special (75.6%). They followed that up at Hagen CDI4* in April, winning the grand prix (77.26%) and finishing runner-up in the freestyle (77.7%).

    Those results at Hagen came just weeks after her long-time coach, Hubertus Schmidt, was hospitalised following a serious riding accident – and more disruption was to follow.

    Denoix was forced to withdraw from the German Dressage Championships last month, Germany’s first mandatory selection trial for the worlds, after suffering a bump in the stable that left the 14-year-old gelding with a swollen leg.

    It wasn’t the first time injury had cost them a start, either: the pair also missed Frankfurt CDI in December for the same reason.

    Losing Katharina would have been a hammer blow to German hopes of team gold – not just for her scores, but for her record under pressure. At last summer’s Europeans in Crozet, she was the only rider among either nation’s core trio to outperform her season’s grand prix average, posting 75.7% against a pre-championship average of 74.3% – a jump of 1.4 points at exactly the moment it mattered most, while her German teammates and all three of Britain’s trio dipped below theirs.

    Germany’s eventual margin of victory over Britain was just 2.86 points across three scores; without Katharina’s uplift, that gap would have been far closer, if not reversed entirely.

    Thankfully for the German dressage team at Aachen 2026, she made her comeback just in time for the second and final selection trial last week, at another CDI4* at Hagen (2–4 July), winning the grand prix (77.02%) and again finishing runner-up in the freestyle (77.36%).

    Afterwards, she said she “never really had any doubts” about Denoix. “By now I know that if he’s physically able to do it, he’ll give everything for me. I trust him completely,” she added.

    German dressage team for the 2026 Aachen World Championships

    Katharina Hemmer with 14-year-old gelding Denoix PCH
    Owner: Nancy Gooding and Hubertus Schmidt
    Breeder: Friedrich Kuhlmann
    Breeding: by Destano, out of a mare by Pik Noir

    Raphael Netz with 15-year-old gelding Great Escape Camelot
    Owner: Theres Boss and Sonja Kristina Krall
    Breeder: C.C. Kerssens-Rademaker
    Breeding: by Glock’s Johnson, out of a mare by Turbo Magic

    Frederic Wandres with 16-year-old gelding Bluetooth OLD
    Owner: Equitorus GmbH
    Breeder: Gestüt Lewitz
    Breeding: by Bordeaux, out of a mare by GB Riccione 

    Isabell Werth with 12-year-old mare Wendy De Fontaine
    Owner: Château de Fontaine and Madeleine Winter-Schulze
    Breeder: Kurt Gosmer
    Breeding: by Sezuan, out of a mare by Blue Hors Soprano 

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    Oscar Williams
    Oscar Williams

    H&H dressage and sport horse editor, and sports manager
    Oscar joined Horse & Hound in October 2023 and is the magazine’s dressage editor and sports manager, overseeing coverage of equestrian sport. After studying equine science at Myerscough College, he spent four years working for leading dressage rider Emile Faurie, competing at the 2015 National Dressage Championships and travelling with the yard to CDIs including Aachen and Saumur. He holds a master’s degree in Literature from York St John University (2021).
    Oscar Williams

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