Dressage-News

June 27, 2021

By KENNETH J. BRADDICK

Isabell Werth on Bella Rose, Jessica von Bredow-Werndl on TSF Dalera BB and Dorothee Schneider on Showtime FRH were the top three finishers all with scores above 82% at the Schafhof CDI4* Grand Prix Special Sunday to almost certainly become the German team at the Olympics in four weeks.

Isabell and the 17-year-old Westfalen mare won the Special with a score of 85.596% at Kronberg, Germany that was the last event before selection of the team for the Tokyo Games.

It was the pair’s 24th straight victory for the world No. 1 ranked partnership, and the 31st win in 38 starts since the pair began Big Tour in 2013.

Jessica von Bredow-Werndl, 35, on TSF Dalera BB, a 14-year-old Trakehner mare, was runner-up on a personal best 84.766%. Ranked third in the world, Jessica and Dalera beat their previous best of 84.702% set last month.

Dorothee Schneider, 52, on Showtime, a 15-year-old Hanoverian gelding that was on Germany’s 2016 Olympic gold medal team, placed third on 82.575%. The pair rank fourth in the world.

The three combinations that won team gold at the 2019 European Championships dominate the top of the world rankings–Bella Rose and Isabell No. 1, Jessica and Dalera No. 3 and Dorothee and Showtime No. 4 (Isabell and Wiehegold OLD are No. 2).

The performance of Bella Rose is remarkable.

Three months after leading Germany to team gold at the 2014 World Equestrian Games in Normandy, Bella Rose then just 10 years old sustained an injury that took more than three years to diagnose and treat. Isabell returned Bella Rose to competition in June 2018–having missed the 2016 Olympics–to lead Germany to gold at the Tryon World Games three months later and then the European Championships in 2019. The duo became world No. 1 in July 2019 and have remained at the top of the standings over the two years since.

The Grand Prix Special that will be performed in  Tokyo to music will decide the team medals from the top eight of 15 nations advancing from the Grand Prix. Individual medals will be decided in the Grand Prix Freestyle.

The three combinations competed together to win team gold at the 2019 European Championships, and just months before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic that led to postponement of the Olympics by a year from 2020 to 2021.

Tokyo will be the sixth Olympics for Isabell, who has already won s10 medals–six gold and four silver medals–as the most successful equestrian in history going back to Barcelona in 1992. If she earns two medals, team and individual, at Tokyo she will move into the elite top 20 medal-earning athlete since creation of the modern Olympics in 1896.

Results:

CDI4* Grand Prix Freestyle