Germany wipe the board in Hagen Europeans under-25 team contest: Brits finish fifth
Estelle Wettstein (SUI) riding Quaterboy during the Grand Prix - Team Competition of the Dressage European Championship held at Hagen A.T.W near Osnabrück in Germany between the 7-12th September 2021
(Image credit: Peter Nixon)
Germany dominated in the team competition in the Under-25 European Dressage Championships in Hagen, Germany today (8 September). Semmieke Rothenberger, Raphael Netz, Ann-Kathrin Lindner and Ellen Richter – who finished first, second, fourth and sixth respectively in the individual rankings – won gold with over 7% to spare over the Netherlands, who took team silver.
“It’s an amazing experience to be at such a great event and to compete alongside the seniors – we learn so much from it,” said Raphael.
Ann-Kathrin added: “It’s an honour to be on an amazing team and with all of us on great horses.”
The Swedish team claimed bronze, with Denmark snapping at their heels in fourth, just 1.12% behind.
First to go for the British team, Lucy Jane Amy, said after her test: “We started really well, I was really pleased going in and the trot felt really good. But he’s only recently moved up to this level and when we went into passage, he just started to get a bit green and he got a bit wobbly. Then we broke into canter and there were just a few mistakes in the one-time changes. But altogether I was really pleased him, because he just needs to gain more confidence.”
Lucy and Rudy scored 66.91%, while Lewis and Diego notched up a strong score of 70.41%, good enough to put them 12th in the individual rankings.
“I was really pleased – there were very few minor mistakes, but I’m really happy that he got all of the changes and he pretty much did everything that I wanted to do in there,” Lewis said after his test. “The atmosphere was really good and I was thrilled to get 70%, a nice clean test and an international personal best.”
Third team rider for Britain, Alex said: “My horse wasn’t quite like the horse I would normally have in a test, as the journey over here took a lot longer than expected due to Brexit and lengthy delays at Calais – he’s usually a bit spooky and I have to say, ‘Woah, come back a bit’, whereas today I had to say, ‘Come on’. But he tried really hard. The bits we thought were going to be weak were weak and the bits we know are good were good.”
While Ellie McCarthy was disappointed with her performance with her father’s 12-year-old son of Londontime, which earned them a score of 64.35%. Their most recent international result in the under-25 grand prix at Wellington in May saw them earn over 70%.
“Obviously I’m really disappointed,” Ellie said after her test. “It’s been going really well in training and even in the warm-up he felt great – I was pretty much hoping for 10% more than the score we got. But I think a bit of tension crept in. I knew that we needed to do a mistake-free test to get a medal, so I think that was very much in my mind. I didn’t want to go for too much because I just wanted a nice safe, clean round, which would have secured us the medal – unfortunately that didn’t happen today.”
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