German professional dressage rider Wibke Bruns has taken on the job of riding the young and upper level trained horses of the Meggle family after the departure of their in-house rider Henrik Lochthowe.
The 34-year old Bruns has agreed to commute between the Meggle yard in Wasserburg, Germany, and her own independent base at Roger and Claudia Seegert's private yard in Simbach am Inn, Germany.
"After the cooperation with Hendrik came to an end the Meggle family approached me and asked if I could step in, training their FEI horses and some really promising youngsters," Bruns told Eurodressage. "However that doesn't affect my own very successful business out of the Seegert's facility and at the moment I commute between the two stables."
Bruns began riding the Meggle horses already a few weeks ago and officially stepped out with youngster Long Island (by Lord Loxley) first. Last weekend she also competed Grand Prix horse Boston (by Johnson) for the first time at the indoor show in Ebreichsdorf, Austria.
"With Meggle's Boston we are not yet at peak performance in the arena, but the training is promising and the key is to build up trust and partnership in the long run," Bruns explained. "With Meggle's Long Island I was very pleased, he came back after a long break from competition, he stayed very focused on me and came out winning two tests for young dressage horses."
Bruns began her professional riding career working at Hof Kasselmann and as of 2011 at Sissy Max-Theurer's yard in Austria. Max-Theurer gave Bruns an impressive string of horses to ride and Bruns made her international show debut in 2012. In 2016 she competed Donna Caribica, Luizao, Valparaiso, and Biedermeier internationally from young horse level to Grand Prix. At the end of August 2016 Bruns resigned and decided to go independent.
"After all the years of successful and valuable cooperation with the Kasselmann family and with Max-Theurer family I felt it was time to take the next step and go independent," she said. "After the Seegerts where hit by a terrible flood in June 2016 they were busy renovating the beautiful property and agreed to start a cooperation and I found perfect conditions to start my own business."
Bruns, who got engaged on 15 July to her boyfriend of three years 15and will get married in the summer of 2018, prides herself in having built up a good base of horses and clients in one year time.
"During the last year I built up a nice string of promising young horses and sales horses and am also really busy teaching students," she said. "In the end all came out as I've always wanted it to be and I can fully concentrate on my passion: riding, training and selling beautiful horses and I found great joy in teaching talented riders, too. I'm looking forward to a very exciting year 2018 with promising horses, doing what I love."
Photos © Selene Scarsi
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