The newly crowned Olympic showjumping champion Christian Kukuk took time out of his busy schedule at the London leg of the Global Champions Tour to talk to H&H, just days after his victory in Paris. The 34-year-old tells us how he first got into riding, what other sport vied for his attention and the uncanny coincidence of bloodlines in his Olympic partner Checker 47.
1. Christian did not start riding until he was a teenager. His parents were both keen riders, and he used to groom for his dad at shows, analysing his performances and realising he wanted to try it out for himself. “So my mum taught me the absolute basics on the lunge for months, then at a riding school.”
2. He is the first German showjumper to win individual gold since Ulrich Kirchhoff in 1996.
3. Christian enjoyed the Olympic jump-off. Most people can enjoy the moment of glory, but the pressure tends to be almost unbearable during the round itself. “For sure I was focused and I wanted to win it, but I felt absolutely no pressure – and I think you could see that in my round,” he says. “Everything worked out like I wanted it to.”
4. Christian learned he was Olympic champion watching the big screen on his own.“I thought, whatever happens now, I need five seconds for myself, and I had those five seconds after Steve Guerdat faulted where I realised ‘Wow, you won it!’ then it felt like everything left my body.”
5. He only started riding Checker 47 when the horse was 10. But he knew immediately that the grey was world-class. “The day I tried him, I said to Ludger [Beerbaum], ‘We have to have this horse’. He felt so scopey, elastic, rideable, motivated, focused and happy – the whole package made me feel that anything was possible.”
6. Christian Kukuk was particularly emotional on winning gold because he believed his late mother “was watching from above”: “She had a very special relationship with Paris, she loved the city, and it was the last show she went to before she died a few years ago.”
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7. One of Checker 47’s joint-owners is an international footballer. Thomas Müller, who plays for Bayern Munich, has won the World Cup with the German team. His wife is a dressage rider and together they breed horses.
8. Christian’s own first sporting passion was also for football, with dreams of becoming an international player. This is why he was a late starter to riding.
9. Christian’s grandfatherFranz Kukuk was a famed dressage rider who made his name with a great stallion called Radetzky. Christian recently discovered that Radetzky is a ninth-generation grand-sire of Checker.
10. Closer in the bloodlines is Ratina Z, the mighty mare with whom Christian’s boss and mentor Ludger Beerbaum won Olympic team gold in 1996 and whose statue stands at Riesenbeck. Ratina is Checker’s grand-dam.
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Jennifer is passionate at showjumping and her role as H&H’s showjumping editor has taken her around the world reporting from shows and interviewing riders, connections and those involved behind the scenes. Since joining H&H from BBC Sport in 2005, she has written on every subject across the equestrian sphere — from turnout rugs to stable management — and has interviewed gold medallists, world champions and winners galore. She also has first-hand experience of working in the equestrian industry as a riding instructor and yard manager.
