The World Championships for Young Horses in Lanaken is the highlight every year for many breeders, riders, owners and equestrian enthusiasts. But can this World Championship final predict the future? We figured it out and go back in time 10 years ago, to 2010 to be precise…
5 year old horses
Forty-two five-year-olds qualified for the final in 2010. Of these, fourteen combinations qualified for the jump-off in which five horses jumped another clear. The win was for Always There under the saddle of the Brazilian Camilla Mazza de Benedicto. In 2012 they jumped international in the classes for 7-year-old horses at 1m35 level, but after that it became quiet around the brown gelding.
Second place was for a more famous stallion, Comme Il Faut under the saddle of Franz-Josef Dahlmann: “As a five-year-old Comme Il Faut was quite small and hot, which made his canter very short. We participated in the Bundeschampionat for the five-year-old horses, in which we finished in the final. A week later we won silver at the World Championships,” Dahlmann recalls. The rest of Comme Il Faut’s career reads like a fairy tale. From silver at the Bundeschampionat for 6 year old horses to victories in the CSI5* Grand Prix’s of Brussels and Vienna, supplemented with victories during CSI5* Chantilly, Barcelona, Madrid,…