Dressage rider Jessica von Bredow-Werndl achieved what had previously seemed impossible with a world-class performance: On Saturday, she and her mare Dalera defeated Isabell Werth, the world's most successful rider, on her best horse, the chestnut mare Bella Rose, for the third time in a row.
At the German championships in Balve, after the warm-up test on Thursday and the title in the Grand Prix Special on Friday, she also won the second, even more spectacular title in the freestyle.
Evi Simeoni
Sports editor.
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Her mark of 93.025 percentage points is one of the highest ever awarded for a dressage freestyle, and it is a record at national level. There was only more for the Briton Charlotte Dujardin with the legendary Valegro - for example, at the Olympic victory in Rio de Janeiro five years ago she achieved 93.857 percentage points. So you can say that Jessica von Bredow-Werndl's ride on Saturday in Balve with her fourteen-year-old Trakehner mare was definitely worth an Olympic medal.
"It couldn't have gone better here," said the new double champion from Aubenhausen in Bavaria.
"Nevertheless, we will now go home and analyze the rides and see what can still be improved." Anyone who wants to travel to the Olympic Games to win gold does not rest on national titles, because the competition, national and international, never sleeps.
However, she will have to make an effort to find any noteworthy errors.
Her routine was flawless.
"There was no getting around her here"
The 90.975 percentage points that Isabell Werth received for her freestyle with Bella Rose was also a personal best.
However, the seventeen-year-old Westphalian mare was noticeably deficient in training.
After entering the freestyle, she initially seemed astonished and a little insecure about what was happening - the highlight right at the beginning, a passage pirouette, suffered as a result.
Otherwise there was a lack of accuracy here and there.
Balve was only Bella Rose's second tournament after a year and a half break.
"It is very pleasing to see how it has developed and built up," said the world and European champion.
“That was the goal.” But of course she would still have preferred to win.
Will she be able to catch up with Dalera by Tokyo?
"There was no getting around her here," said Isabell Werth.
As in the special, Dorothee Schneider from Framersheim with the gelding Showtime came third in the freestyle. She had finally got rid of a phenomenon that she called "changeable worms". With her gelding Showtime, she made no mistakes in the flying canter changes this time. “He took me with him,” she said, “and I found myself again.” At 89.775 percentage points, it was just below the 90 percent mark. She rode with a broken collarbone that had not yet fully healed and was secured with tape.
Jessica von Bredow-Werndl, Isabell Werth and Dorothee Schneider - that should also be the line-up of the German Olympic team, provided there are no unpleasant surprises before the Games in Tokyo. At the end of June, at the second sighting in Kronberg, everyone will start again. Then the decision is made as to who is allowed to travel to the games as a substitute pair. The best chances are Helen Langehanenberg, fifth on Saturday with the mare Annabelle, and the brother of the German champion, Benjamin Werndl, with the gelding Daily Mirror, sixth on Saturday.