Hartwig Burfeind completed a triple beat by becoming the 2011 German Professional Dressage Rider Champion for the third year in a row at the 2011 CDI Hagen Horses and Dreams event hosted at Hof Kasselmann in Hagen, Germany, on 4 - 8 May 2011. The 44-year old Sandbostel based rider scored the highest on three horses in the Finals with horse change.
Burfeind qualified for the horse change finals by finishing second in the Grand Prix with 68.936% and third in the Special with 68.833%. For this Championship he saddled his new ride De Value, an 11-year old Hanoverian stallion (by De Niro x Ritual) which he has been riding since August 2010. Hartwig is too tall for the bay stallion with his legs far sticking out underneat the horse's belly but, nonetheless, the rider is on the same wavelength with his horse.
In the Horse Change Finals, Burfeind showed his mastery as a professional dressage rider, being able to ride good tests out of his own horse as well as two "foreign" horses on which he only sat for 15 minutes before riding a short Grand Prix test. His competitors in the Horse Change Finals were Markus Gribbe and former young rider Sonja Bolz. Burfeind scored the most points aboard Gribbe's Farwell III. He got 69.556% and finished third with this horse out of 9 riders. On Bolz' Napolitain d'Excellence he was fourth with 68.889% and aboard his own horse he scored 67.722% to finish fifth, making him overall the highest scoring rider in the Finals and the new 2011 German Professional Dressage Champion.
Markus Gribbe became the 2011 reserve champion. Aboard Klatte's 11-year old Westfalian licensed stallion Farewell III (by Fidermark x Rosenkavalier), Gribbe won the Grand Prix with 69.447% and the Special with 70.958% but the pair couldn't maintain that number one position in the Finals.
Markus had the second best ride in the finals on his own horse (70.666%), but scored 66.944% on Napolitain d'Excellence and slightly struggled on Burfeind's De Value (63.556%). Gribbe was one of very few professional dressage riders setting the right example by wearing a helmet in the warm up ring!
"It was only Farewell's second Grand Prix in Hagen," said proud owner Klatte after Farewell III had won the Grand Prix on Wednesday.
The Kerpen based Sonja Bolz got the bronze medal. Her 14-year old Hanoverian stallion Napolitain d'Excellence (by Natiello xx x Calypso II) is such an exciting horse to watch. The long legged chestnut stallion has a wonderful piaffe and passage and is always nicely uphill in the frame. The pair was third in the Grand Prix (68.213%) and second in the Grand Prix Special (70.042%).
In the Horse Change Finals Bolz remarkably covered the first and last spot. With her own horse she rose to the top scoring 71.333% but on Farewell III she has issues and landed 9th place with 60.889%. Aboard De Value Bolz posted a score of 67.333% to place 6th.
"Napo is by far the bravest and most honest horse in my stable," Bolz said about her horse Napolitain d'Excellence. "He is very alert and his willingness to work is limitless. Maybe that's because he's actually a show jumping horse with exceptional dressage talent. His strengths are jumps built closely together as well as piaffe and passage. At the moment Napo is only doing dressage."
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Text and Photos by Astrid Appels
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