World Young Horse Championships: Victory for Wandres and Fashion Prinz OLD

With the advantage of being last to go working to his benefit, German Frederic Wandres and the Oldenburg stallion Fashion Prinz OLD became the winners of the 5-year old Preliminary Test at the 2022 World Championships for Young Horse Championships in Ermelo, The Netherlands, on Thursday 8 August 2022.

The Big Bang

The first class of the 2022 WCYH began early Thursday morning with 44 five-year old combinations putting their best foot forward to give the judges a strong first impression and finish in the top 12 for direct qualification into the Finals round. The weather forecast for the first day of competition had been ominous all week.
After a two-month summer drought in West Europe, the incessant heat finally came to an end, unfortunately today, with massive thunder storms and downpours of rain forecast all day. The weathermen weren't wrong as riders, grooms and spectators staying in the Ermelo area were literally "thundered" out of their beds with lightning striking hard at 6 AM in the morning..It pretty much rained all morning and some riders really got he brunt of it, while others rode in drizzle. In the afternoon the sky broke open and the sun peeped through, casting rays of sunlight over the championship arena and the prize giving ceremony round 15h30.

A Few Impressions

The overall quality in the 5-year old class was high with very complete horses presenting itself for assessment. Only very few pairs rode down the centerline today of which one thought they could better have stayed home to practice a bit more. This is a good evolution reflecting the improved breeding, the better riding, and the overall better selection by the national federations.
Judges Henning Lehrmann (GER), Monique Peutz-Vegter (NED), Lars Andersson (SWE) and Janet Foy (USA) did the sorting today and their top 12 and minimum qualification score to go directly to the finals ended up being 8.42 points. Last year in Verden that mark was even higher (8.62 points) and in 2019 in Ermelo it was 8.44 points.
Before I discuss the top rides I'd like to make a note of a few random impressions. The five year old preliminary test asks for two diagonals of medium trot and two short diagonals of medium walk, one with the reins lengthened. Many riders rode the working trot as a medium trot and the medium trot was full throttle extended trot. Also in the medium walk, a lot of extended walk was shown, or there was hardly any differentiation between the first and second medium walk diagonal (in the second the horse really needed to stretch on the long rein). The required medium canter often looks like full blast extended canter.
Quite a few riders still have some homework to do when it comes to halting square and doing a straight reinback. Some riders have the annoying habit to check whether their horse is halting square or if the tongue is sticking out right after their final halt and salute. Don't do that. It just looks bad in competition!
The two best represented sires in the 5-year old test were Furstenball and Revolution, each with four offspring competing. Ah and the jumbotron was black all day because the panel had to cope with too much rain overnight and malfunctioned. They only started displaying the scores at the end of the class. Pity as the screen normally shows the information of the horse (breed, pedigree, breeder and owner), which is nice at a "Breeding" World Championship.

Fashion Prinz Tops the Board

The ground jury saw the winner in German Frederic Wandres aboard the Oldenburg stallion Fashion Prinz OLD (by Furst Romancier x Sarkozy). The pair had much to live up to at the end of the class, where the bar was set high by four other stallions and five mares in the top 10. The tall liver chestnut was ridden with much forward drive in trot. His medium trots had a lot of ground cover and suspension, but at times the horse dropped in the poll. Fashion Prinz showed a huge medium walk. While the horse looked a bit rushed in the trot, the canter was much more balanced and quiet, but overall he appeared croup high in his striding and could have had more uphill tendency. They finished with a square final halt
The judges were in awe with the test and generously rewarded the stallion with 9.5 for walk, 9 for trot, 8.5 for canter and submission and 9 for perspective. This became the winning total of 8.9 points.
Fashion Prinz is bred by Paul Schockemöhle and sold for 750,000 euro to the American Houston family at the 2021 PSI Auction.