‘A course-designer should have his own signature style, like Picasso’: find out what Frank Rothenberger has in store for the World Championships
The Aachen course-designer on why we must never bore horses with just poles and planks, and what sort of tracks to expect at the World Championships
With just a month to go before the World Championships, Frank Rothenberger tells H&H how his career in course-designing took off, and why Aachen is like his own Olympics.
In Frank’s words
I originally wanted to be an architect, but started building courses when I was 16. I was showjumping at the time and didn’t have jumps at home, so I built them for myself. My grandfather was a carpenter, who taught me how to work timber, and my father ran a manufacturing company, so I bought machines to make the jumps.
I had water, ditches, hedges, walls, banks, gates – everything. Then people started asking me to use my field, so I would keep building new courses for them.
I competed in three German young rider championships – but in 1980 I stopped riding for three years to set up my own business manufacturing jumps as I had so much work. I was 22. I had a couple of good horses, and was competing alongside Otto Becker. I intended to go back to riding, but I found out I was more successful at designing.
The company is called isiTrade, after my daughter Isabel – Isi. She runs it with my son, who does the 3D design. Isabel is also an FEI level three course-designer and is assisting me in Aachen. I support them but they are running the business now.
I’ve been involved in six Olympic Games so far, as a technical delegate and assistant course-designer. I was shortlisted as designer for London 2012 with Bob Ellis and wrote out a 100-page concept. Bob just told the team what he planned to do and he got the job! I did the same for Rio 2016 but they took on my former assistant Guilherme Jorge, a Brazilian.
But I have my Olympics every year in Aachen – and in some years, like 2026, two big shows with the CSI5* and a championship.
Never miss out on the latest happenings in the equestrian world
The huge grass arena at Aachen can hold 40,000 spectators – which provides challenges for the designer
The 2006 grand prix at the World Equestrian Games in Aachen was probably the best course I’ve ever built. We had 25 horses in the final round and there were faults at every fence: planks, walls, bush oxer, skinny gate – these are the courses I like. One of the most spectacular rounds I’ve ever seen over one of my courses was Scott Brash winning the Rolex grand prix on Hello Sanctos in 2015.
A course-designer should have his own “handwriting”. It’s like with artists – they have their signature style. Take Picasso and Rubens – Picasso paints in straight lines and Rubens paints voluptuous women. If you give Picasso a blank canvas, he’d paint straight lines, never anything like Rubens. But within that they can both do so many different things and they are both successful.
Twenty years ago, I would know who the course-designer was just by looking at the course – that’s not so easy now because everything is so unified.
Variety is so important. Nowadays the fences might be beautiful but it’s all poles and planks. We should not bore horses; we need new stimuli for them. I like to see bush oxers, a double of Liverpools, water jumps, skinny gates. Horses come from the landscape, from hunting and they should be brave – but poles and planks don’t require bravery.
Likewise, riders need to be able to react in the moment. I may be old-fashioned but I believe if you create variety, interrupt the rhythm, speed and breathing, asking horses to collect, you challenge the partnership more.
“For me it’s not about forcing faults, but breaking the rhythm”
I fought against the proposal to cancel the open water. I said, “It’s natural, it’s only 5cm deep, not dangerous and it’s attractive for the spectator.” It tests how the rider can collect their horse, get him on the hindleg and accelerate. For me it’s not about forcing faults, but breaking the rhythm.
But I would change the faults system because how can you train a horse that landing on the plasticine is a mistake? He thinks he did everything right. So I would say if the hoof makes a mark on the plasticine, that should be counted as landing on dry land.
At recent international championships we’ve had brand new showgrounds and so all the fences were new designs. However, Aachen is the oldest show in Germany, so I will be keeping all the traditional Aachen jumps that everyone knows, like the Barbarossa Wall and the Globe, as well as producing some new fences. Otherwise it would be like designing a course at Hickstead without all the beautiful, world-famous jumps people want to see.
Aachen’s famous globe fence
I love a big grass arena – like Dublin, Calgary, Falsterbo and Aachen – as the more space you have, the more opportunity there is to be creative. Aachen is challenging to design because the arena is so big – with a dressage arena in the middle for this year’s World Championships – and there are 40,000 spectators. The course has to go into each corner or fans will complain they didn’t see the riders.
The challenge is to cover the whole arena in the jump-off without turning it into a flat race.
At the World Championships we might have over 100 horses and the standard will vary. However, the aim is not to punish the weaker riders by just building for the 20 top ones. I’d finalised my courses three months before the championships and I won’t feel nervous.
You’re under pressure, but I’ve done so many courses in my life – over 100 Nations Cups, seven European Championships, six World Cup Finals. I have good assistants around me and we discuss everything.
Course-designing is my hobby, the other one being sailing. After Aachen I’m booked on a catamaran in Sicily – and when that’s over I’m designing a two-star in Sicily.
- To stay up to date with the latest equestrian news in the run up to the World Championships, subscribe to the Horse & Hound website
Martha is an experienced journalist who is mad-keen on horses and dogs. Her reporting CV includes the Paris Olympics, European championships, Aachen World Equestrian Festival and World Cup finals. After growing up with assorted liver and white springer spaniels, she enjoyed 14 years with two rescue dogs. Now, her constant companion is Fidget, an extremely energetic and habitually muddy black and white springer. Martha has written on topics as diverse as a top horse’s clone to the best GPS trackers for dogs, as well as equestrian and rural matters for Country Life, The Field, The Times, The Spectator and The Telegraph alongside Horse & Hound.