Dressage sport cannot mesh better than today at the International Festhalle Riding Tournament Frankfurt (IFRF) - from the Louisdor Prize to the international Grand Prix stage.
"That was actually something I hadn't experienced in 30 years," Isabell Werth smiles and adds: "For me, the only option was to stop and wait, and thank God Emilio saw it the same way." What happened? Werth had barely started her Grand Prix, the international five-star test presented by Bankhaus Metzler, when firework-like noises could be heard in the Festhalle. This was caused by a defective loudspeaker. After a few minutes, the loudspeaker system was switched off - silence in the festival hall. That was also unusual. Without background music, every single sound seemed more significant, but Emilio and Werth continued their test almost as if nothing had ever happened. "Emilio really showed character there," Werth said proudly of her long-time partner. In the end, the pair won with 74.631 percent.
Seven years earlier, Emilio had already shone once in the Festhalle. Back then, the Ehrenpreis son won the final of the Louisdor Prize with 79.10 percent. The highest score ever achieved in this Final - until now. "Since Sönke will probably top my result from 2015 in the Final on Sunday," Werth threw encouragingly into the round. Sönke Rothenberger and the only eight-year-old Fendi were thrilling in the lead-in test of the Louisdor Final on Friday morning in the Festhalle. Their result: 79.553 percent. "During the warm-up Fendi was already on fire today," said Rothenberger, "but when he came into the arena I knew. Today everything is possible! He was calm, I could clip him on and off - it was just how I want it to be!"
It was the fifth Grand Prix win in Frankfurt for seven-time Olympic champion Werth. The last time she had dominated both Grand Prix and Freestyle was in 2019 with Don Johnson. For Olympic team champion Rothenberger it was only the third time that he had competed in Frankfurt's dressage arena - after 2014 with Favourit and 2015 with Cosmo in the Louisdor Prize.
The runners-up also put in strong performances. In the Grand Prix it was the Swedish top rider Patrik Kittel on his ten-year-old young mare Forever Young HRH. A horse with a lot of eagerness and talent for Grand Prix sport. With a score of 73.630 percent, the two placed ahead of show boss Matthias Alexander Rath and his nine-year-old Destacado FRH. Rath already shook his head several times during the test and explained after the round that the corners that appeared in today's test were on his account and not the horse's. Rath will compete again on Saturday in the Grand Prix Special, in the Prize of the Liselott Schindling Foundation, the entire IFRF-Orga team is already keeping their fingers crossed.
Just like the winner, Sönke, the runner-up in the Louisdor Prize, Frederic Wandres, a member of the German Olympic squad, was also beaming. He has made a great leap forward with the nine-year-old Harrods over the course of the season: "Especially in the last two months I have noticed that everything is much easier for him now." With a score of 74.914 percent and second place, Wandres was highly satisfied.
