European Championships for Sports Arabians
After last year’s cancellation of the European Champion-ships for Sports Arabians, the riders met this year in Wiener Neustadt, Austria. The event took place in combination with the Austrian and Lower Austrian Championships, what at first sight may be confusing. However, the combination had its advantages: 61 horses from eight different nations were participating in this ECAHO Sports Horse Competition.
After a break of seven years, the European Championships returned to Austria. This time, the Western Training Center at Wiener Neustadt, about 50 km South of the Austrian capital was chosen as the venue, which is the traditional place for the Austrian and Lower Austrian Championships, and this year’s European event was just an extension of it. The combination of three championships in one event might be a bit confusing at first but gives all riders the possibility to participate in all of them, as they are “open”. “Open” in Austria obviously means that foreigners may become Austrian Champions, which seems to be odd but is accepted here. And so, six out of 24 medals went abroad. Similarly, non-European participants may become European Champion.
But it is not only the combination of different levels, that brings riders together, one of the strongest arguments in favor of the event is the combination of different riding styles and disciplines. Where else can you watch dressage and reining at the same weekend at the same venue? And it broadens the mind to look beyond the box, for the riders, the spectators, and even the judges!
And the Winners are…!
The Austrian Arabian sports horse community is well known for its top Western sports results, and some of the horses are also competing at open Western competitions quite successfully. However, this year, it was a “German family affair” when Sabrina Pauli swept the board with WAS Zahims Zarina: They took no less than three Gold medals in Western Pleasure, Trail and Western Allround, and one Bronze medal in Reining. At the same time the mare’s 3/4 brother in blood, with Sabrina’s father in the saddle, took Bronze in Western Pleasure. At the last European Championships in 2015, Sabrina was still ranked behind her father Martin Pauli who is a European Champion in his own right in Western Pleasure and Reining, with the sire of the two horses, Zid Ibn El Zahim. Bred by Evelyn and Dieter Ruess of Wadi Al Shams stud, both horses, WAS Zahims Zarina and WAS Tajshan Ibn Taraszena, have their foundation sire Taktik (by Kankan) in their pedigree, a performance horse of old Russian bloodlines.
Second most successful German horse was Haifi El Sorrento (by BS Specific) with Susanne Hoyler. Sure, they missed their goal to win Gold in Dressage and had to be content with Gold in Classic Pleasure. But to win the Classic Allround with such a wide margin to second-placed Muteeaa, as well as Silver in Mounted Native Costume – that’s not a bad result after all. In total, the Germans took 11 of 30 medals and thus were the most successful nation.
The winner in Dressage was Tove Roy with Padrons Must (by Padrons Immage), who achieved a very respectable result of 66% in the Prix St. George test – the best they ever had in this type of competition. However, and without diminishing their result, the level of riding was not quite as high as last time, when Zonyx got 70,1%. But Padrons Must has improved over the last two years, so he deserved the victory for sure. Both, Tove Roy and Susanne Hoyler have been competing at the Austrian Nationals last year to get acquainted with the venue.
Second place and Silver in Dressage went to MS Madrass (by Kamerton) with Susanne Giese from Germany and the two showed the best performance I had seen of them so far, while third-placed Al Khattar W’rsan under Line Moen from the UAE did not seem to be up to his usual level.
Let’s stay with the classic disciplines: In Show Jumping, we saw the 2014 European Champion repeating his success: Walor with Daria Klimecka from Poland. In all honesty, the course was not an easy one, as the arena was significantly smaller than in Janow Podlaski and therefore the course more technical. Walor had the only clear round, followed by three riders with four penalties. Silver and Bronze had to be decided by time and ESP Haife De F with Melanie Kirisits was about 2.5 seconds faster than third-placed Espinosa Qahira and Alexandra Moosburger. ESP Haife won Gold in the Austrian Championships and Silver in the European Championships. After some injuries and health problems of horse and rider over the last four years, this has been a tremendous comeback! Bronze winner Espinosa Qahira (by LM Libretto) proved to be a truly versatile Arabian because we know her from the European Championships 2006 in Stadl Paura when she participated in the driving competition and was second in the Marathon.
A Pleasure to Ride
There are four Pleasure classes altogether, one for classic riders (Classic Pleasure), one for Western riders (Western Pleasure), and two for both styles (Mounted Native Costume and Ladies Side Saddle). However, it is more the classic riders that are nowadays participating in the two “costume classes”.
Haifi El Sorrento has been mentioned already as the Gold medallist in Classic Pleasure. Tamon (by Wagant) from Denmark with Viuf Shannon in the saddle took the Silver medal. This team has also improved over the years and the horse looks more and more expressive with increased training.
Muteeaa W’rsan and Line Moen from the UAE were the winner of the Bronze medal but achieved also two Gold medals in Mounted Native Costume and Ladies Side Saddle as well as Silver in the “Classic Allround” Combination. Muteeaa is a very elegant mare indeed, and she may soon replace Al Khattar W’rsan at the top of the UAE dressage horses. She is sired by the legendary Monarch AH who actually is a proven sire of racehorses. Second in the costume class was Haifi El Sorrento as mentioned already, and Muteeaas stablemate Al Sakab W’rsan, ridden by Emma Ganzarain achieved Bronze.
Ladies Side Saddle, although unfortunately, only a few ladies take the challenge, is always a pleasure to watch, as it looks so elegant. Same this year, when Line Moen rode all in red and took the victory. Very classy and elegant was Ann-Kathrin Rupp with the Straight Egyptian Naoufil (by Mahadin), a complete newcomer to the European Championships, as it was the first time ever that the German state stud Marbach participated in this riding competition. They were one pair of a team with three riders and four horses and all in all left a very positive impression. The oldest horse participating in the event was the Bronze winner in Ladies Side Saddle, Najim at 24 years of age. He gave living proof that good training keeps horses young!
Let’s go Western!
WAS Zahims Zarina was mentioned above as the most successful horse of the whole event. With regards to the Western disciplines, GFH Sandhya was close behind her, winning Silver in the same three disciplines, Pleasure, Trail and Allround. The 5-year-old Sandhya is by the former European Champion Baikal and represents Gut Fronleitenhofs breeding although she has been sold to Elisabeth Steiner; rider was Andre Reitermayr. The king’s discipline, Reining, was won by the shooting star GFH Sonar Seganges (by Ganges) under Reinhard Hochreiter. The team competed even at the NRHA European Championships last year and Sonar is owned by the Dries family of Gut Fronleitenhof, Austria’s leading stud farm for Western performance Arabians.
A new face at the European Championships was Djbella KB from Germany with Lynn Troppenz in the saddle who took the Silver medal in Reining, Bronze went as mentioned above to WAS Zahims Zarina.
The European Championships are always a “mega event” to organize, and it takes around 40 officials, judges, course designers, vets, speakers, show office staff, judges’ assistants, and not to forget all the kitchen personnel to feed everybody. And so it is not a matter of course, that Sissi Chat, the driving force behind it all, has agreed to organize the European Championships 2018 again, same place, similar date: 26-29 August 2018.
Gudrun Waiditschka
