Boyd Exell extended his extraordinary reign at the top of Driving with an eighth consecutive FEI Driving World Championship Individual title in Aachen, while the Netherlands claimed a record 13th Team gold.
Calm, consistent, focused and relishing the world stage, Exell showed again why he is Driving’s most decorated Individual champion. The Australian finished on 142.64, ahead of Belgium’s Dries Degrieck on 148.85 and USA’s Chester Weber on 156.77.
Last to enter a near-capacity Stadium 2 on Sunday afternoon, Exell guided his experienced team through the cones for just 0.30 penalties to seal another World title – and help Australia go one better than their bronze of two years ago by taking Team silver behind the Netherlands.
As Exell pulled up after his cones round, he handed the reins to long-term groom Emma Olsson, jumped off the carriage and kissed and patted his horses.
Afterwards he said, “I feel relief. We’ve got good horsepower and I brought my old horses to this World Championship.
“I’d like to pay tribute to a horse called Celviro who was injured at Royal Windsor this year and wasn’t able to come. He was a three day leader for me so there was a bit of a change around for the rest of the season. But I brought my favourite old horse Checkmate and he’s so good in dressage and cones, and he’s 19, so he gave me a lot of confidence to be strong for the Aachen World Championship.
“Daan, who is 18 now and has won medals before, was brought in this year because he’s renowned as a fast cones and marathon horse.”
Discussing Australia’s Team success, Exell reflected on his work with teammate Tor van den Berge: “With no drop score everything counts, and Tor and I have been working together and practising for this occasion and that’s paid off.”
The World champion also paid tribute to the Australian fans who were vocal in their support at every stage, plus course designer Alexander Flocke (GER) and the grounds team at Aachen, who overcame extreme weather conditions to keep the going as good as possible.
Degrieck wins first World Individual medal
Paying tribute to his horses, who are a new combination this year, silver medallist Degrieck (BEL) was particularly proud of his six-year-old, Parla Pardoux, who he used for the dressage and says has an “old horse head”.
Degrieck said: “I was really happy with my horses, especially my young horse who coped so well here in the big arena in Aachen.”
As the penultimate driver to enter what was later called the “Hallowed Ground” by teammate Glenn Geerts, Degrieck did not let the pressure show as he went clear with only 1.13 time penalties – the third-best cones score of the day. By that stage, he was guaranteed a medal with a score of 148.85, and in the end it was silver.
Weber retains the bronze medal
Despite knocking an early cone on the course, Weber used all his experience at the top level to stay on course and cruise through the rest of the cones, accumulating only a few time penalties to score 7.16. His final total of 156.77 enabled him to retain the bronze he won in Hungary two years ago.
Weber said: “I’m super pleased with the horses. It was a great way to start off the event with an impressive win in the dressage. I was also happy on the cross country and we had a great team of supporters around. I knew what I needed to do to stay in medal contention, knowing that Dries and Bram were going out there fighting too. We tried to drive as cleverly as we could yesterday and it all worked out.
“I had an unfortunate cone number two down which was my fault and definitely not part of my plan. So I thought, ‘Now I’ve got to make it happen,’ and my horses did a fantastic job. My support staff of course helped so much too because this is a team sport; you just can’t do it alone and you need people around you who are passionate. It takes such a huge level of care to get five horses ready for a World Championship.”
Weber added how much he enjoyed spending time at the same German base as the other American Athletes in the lead-up to the World Championship.
Bram Chardon steers the Netherlands to record gold
Sitting in fourth overnight, Bram Chardon had probably left too much to do to achieve his dream of double gold, but Team gold was well within sight. A cones aficionado, he produced an electrifying double clear, the only one of the day, and his explosive emotional reaction afterwards showed what it meant. He could not secure an Individual medal, but he did steer his team to a remarkable 13th World Championship victory.
Bram said: “I was quite pleased with my dressage day and it was my best score of the season. I was ready to fight for the individual medals but the change in my team because the marathon horse couldn’t be used made it hard, but I wanted to stay in the race for the team. Today I was able to use him again and you could see the difference it made. It was fantastic to win the cones and when I was double clear, there was a lot of emotion.”
Later, teammate Koos de Ronde reminded everyone that although he has been on many of those medalling teams, the great Ijsbrand Chardon, Bram’s father, has been on all of them. The room applauded because Chardon Sr. had seemed crestfallen by his unusual tally of 9.74 time penalties in the cones and did not break into his customary smile as he left the arena, nor did he wave to the crowd.
He confirmed his dismay at the press conference, but was buoyed by his teammates and then joked that Australia’s Tor van den Berge had made their task more difficult.
De Ronde said: “We had ups and downs, but the great thing about the Dutch team is that we make each other stronger. If one has a bad day, we build each other up. Today Ijsbrand wasn’t where we expected and I had a small mistake, but we all fought for it and it was fun to be on the podium again.”
It was tight – the Netherlands ended on 315.13, ahead of two-man Australia by only 2.12 points – less than a cone – on 317.25. The Belgians, pre-event contenders for gold, were happy to settle for another bronze on 325.52. There was disappointment for the Germans that they could not make the podium, finishing fourth on 334.35, ahead of the USA and France.
Triumphant times
Everyone agreed that this was a classic World Championship for Driving. Praise was universal for the course designer, who had to balance the broad abilities of those entered while providing enough challenges for the top drivers – something he achieved.
Both the obstacles and the cones were deemed “horse friendly”, and each and every one involved made magical, lifelong memories at an amazing Aachen celebration of horse sport.
Full results here.
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