Aachen: Roger Yves Bost claims the Accom Prize
The first four-legged winner at the World Equestrian Festival, CHIO Aachen 2007, is called Lolita de la Loge. In the Accom Prize the eight-year-old Selle Français mare beat her fellow competitors in a time of 61.05 seconds with her rider, the three-time World Championships participant, Roger-Yves Bost. The 41-year-old recorded his so far best championship result at the Olympic Games in Atlanta, when he took fourth place with the French team.
Christian Ahlmann only took a few milliseconds longer to complete the course (61.58 seconds) with the 10-year-old Pythagoras x Z-Bariton Rhineland mare, Perry Lee. Ahlmann (32) was the topic of discussion in 2003 when he took the double European Championship title and was a member of the German bronze-winning team at the Olympic Games in Athens and the FEI World Equestrian Games in Aachen 2006 with the Holstein gelding Cöster. Third place went to the Irish rider, Jessica Kürten, who lives in Hünxe. The 37-year-old, two-time Olympic participant had saddled the nine-year-old Belgian stallion, Castle Forbes Vivaldo van het Costersvel. She reached the finish line with the Clinton x Randel Z son in 63.40 seconds.
The course was 520 metres long and comprised of eleven obstacles and 13 fences, and a speed of 375 m/min. was demanded.
The field of competitors included top riders such as the Vice World Champion of 2006, the US-American Beezie Madden. She gave an harmonious performance with her World Championship silver medallist horse, Authentic, a 12-year-old grandson of the famous sire, Quidam de Revel. “My aim was to complete a safe round, I wasn’t riding against the clock,” said the 43-year-old rider, who lives in the State of New York.
Three of the four Dutch World Championship team horses were reunited in Aachen: Oki Doki was the first horse to enter the ring with Albert Zoer. He completed the course with four faults, whereby the magnificent stallion Eurocommerce Berlin ridden by Gerco Schröder and BMC Up and Down with Jeroen Dubbeldam both left the ring with seven faults.
Marcus Ehning and the 10-year-old mare, Noltes Küchengirl, were the only German World Championship pair in this competition and they finished on a score of six faults. Overall 16 German competitors took part in the accom Prize – whereby eight of them rode two horses apiece. The 2006 team European Champion of the Junior Riders, Christoph Brüse, celebrated his debut performance: The 18-year-old from Bonn-Rodderberg competed in Aachen for the first time and also made the most of it by riding two horses. “As every year, Aachen is something really special. As these are the only trials for the European Championships apart from the German Championships in Gera, it is a particularly important event for us,” explained Kurt Gravemeier, the national coach of the German jumping team.