Not only the horses, but also their riders often have a special pedigree.

For example, if you look at the German show jumping quartet that competed at the European Championships in Riesenbeck and won the silver medal together, the question arises naturally: Is riding hereditary?

Evi Simeoni

Sports editor.

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André Thieme, who also became European individual champion on Sunday, got his horse enthusiasm from his father Michael Thieme, who was once a successful dressage rider and master saddle in Redefin, at the state stud of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, in the GDR. Christian Kukuk is already the third generation, starting with his grandfather Franz Kukuk, who was a legendary dressage trainer and main saddler at the North Rhine-Westphalian state stud in Warendorf. David Will's parents, in turn, ran the riding school at Gut Ising am Chiemsee for many years.

Only one person dances a little out of line: Marcus Ehning from Borken, who has been on the road with German championship teams for decades and is one of the greatest stylists in the world, has no riding ancestors.

You might even think that his father Richard is a bit of the opposite.

But Ehning also refers to a kind of tradition: “It's a phenomenon for me, but there are extremely many cattle and meat dealers who always had horses.

You always say it's not like that, but I think that they still have a certain relationship with animals. ”These people generally have an eye for animals, even when it comes to assessing their athletic qualities.

"Horse virus picked up by parents"

André Thieme contested his first championship at the Olympic Games in Tokyo and was one of the three German European championship debutants in Riesenbeck, although he is 46 years old and has been in the business for a long time. As a boy he was actually into football. “But I picked up the horse virus from my parents.” In addition, his father could not have helped him in football, but he could have helped in horse riding. The young man did an apprenticeship at the state stud, where his father was responsible for training apprentices. “I was brought up to be a horse man from scratch,” says Thieme.

It wasn't always easy. “My father was always there. He is a very calm, dear, very human guy. But if someone like that is always there and is always looking at your fingers ... For years we have sat at the same table for breakfast, lunch, coffee and dinner, that means there was a constant error evaluation. ”Thieme describes himself as yielding: "I've never been the type to look up."

Only when he had the golden equestrian badge in dressage in his pocket was he allowed to specialize in jumping. The result, among other things: three wins in the German Derby in Hamburg. And a successful second pillar at the winter tournaments in the USA, where he has already won a lot of money and is doing lucrative trading. “I can tell you a lot about how happy I am about German reunification,” says Thieme, who was still going to school at the time of the fall. "I was able to do things that my father was unfortunately never able to achieve in sports."