Lanaken: Three World Champions for German Riders

With three gold medals, the German riders return home from the World Championships for five- to seven-year-old show jumpers at the Belgian stud farm Zangersheide. Christian Ahlmann (Marl) led the five-year-old Belgian Querido VG Z to victory, Philipp Weishaupt (Riesenbeck) made the six-year-old Westphalian Coros the world champion and in the classification of seven-year-old horses Harm Lahde (Blender) won with the KWPN mare Just A Dream.

When Judy-Ann Melchior invites young show jumpers to Lanaken for the World Championships, her Zangersheide stud turns into a melting pot of top sport, stallion keeping, horse breeding and horse trading. The mammoth event with around 700 horses also includes the Belgian Show Jumping Championships and a foal auction. The latter, by the way, resulted in a new world record price of 160,000 euros, which a customer paid for a colt by Eldorado van de Zeshoek out of a For Pleasure dam. The stallion is a son of Luciana Diniz's Olympic mare Fit for Fun.

The World Championship for five-year-old horses was won by Judy-Ann Melchior's partner Christian Ahlmann with the Belgian-bred stallion Querido VG Z. He is a son of Ahlmann's successful horse Dominator Z (dam's sire Cellano). At the World Championships, the five-year-olds also have to compete in the jump-off. For Querido, the battle against the clock is apparently no problem; he galloped across the finish line in 37.49 seconds. Angelique Rüsen, rider at the Ahlmann Stable, also competed with a Dominator offspring: Diabolo van Bets Z (dam's sire Cassini II) from Zangersheide placed ninth with one down (4/42.44).

This year's Vice Bundeschampion, Coros by Cornet Obolensky-Arpeggio, took the lead in the six-year-old class. He had already won bronze in Warendorf last year with Hendrik Dowe, now Philipp Weishaupt is in the saddle and secured him the title of World Champion. The stallion, bred by Werner Buschsieweke (Rietberg), mastered the jump-off clear in 33.77 seconds. Angelique Rüsen reached the finish line a good 1.5 seconds slower with Crowny NW by Crown Z-Pontifex, also bred in Westphalia (0/35.08, second place). The addition NW stands for his breeder Norbert Wentrup from Dülmen.

The final event of the show was the decision in the seven-year-old horses. Once again, a German rider had every reason to cheer: Harm Lahde, rider at the Eichenhain Stud just outside Verden, beat the competition in the saddle of the Dutch mare Just a Dream (by Zirocco Blue-Carano).

Before the young world champions were crowned, one of the most coveted jumping competitions was on the program: 53 licensed and performance-tested breeding and sport stallions were entered for the 1.50-meter "FEI Zangersheide Sires of the World" jumping competition. It would have been a hair's breadth of a triumph for the Zangersheide stud, but Christian Ahlmann and Dominator Z missed the victory by a hundredth of a second! The Diamant de Semilly son, currently the station's breeding flagship, finished the jump-off in 34.15 seconds. For the Belgian Koen Vereecke and the eleven-year-old Kasanova de la Pomme, the clock stopped at 34.14 seconds. That's just bad luck. Ahlmann's namesake, 20-year-old Hannes Ahlmann from Reher (the two are not related), steered the Holstein stallion Nerrado by Nekton-Acorado to fourth place, also clear in the jump-off (36.33). hen