"It is fabulous", exclaimed Brigitte Wittig after winning the Intermédiaire I with Blind Date: The pair scored 74.47 percent and narrowly won the dressage competition at the CHIO Aachen 2009.
"Blind Date felt super, she performed brilliantly and it is amazing when you consider that this was only the second time that she has competed at this level and that she is only seven," stated Wittig, who runs a stud and training yard in Rahden with her husband Wolfram.
This Horse and rider have already qualified for the Nuremberg Burgpokal. The Wittigs purchased Blind Date as a yearling and the mare descends from their successful stallion, Breitling, whose top offspring they keep on presenting at international level every year.
Second place went to Matthias Alexander Rath, who achieved a score of 74.105 percent with the top Hanoverian auction horse, Weltmeyer Junior. Hans Peter Minderhoud was not so happy with taking only third place with a score of 73.211 percent on the former double World Champion of the Young Horses: Florencio, a popular stud stallion descending from Florestan. Some of the judges only gave him a 9 for his extended trot and canter, whereby he was mostly awarded 10s at the Young Horse World Championships.
"He felt great, really played along and fought brilliantly for me," Hans Peter Minderhoud said. The Netherlands also ranked fourth with a score of 70 percent, which Sander Marijnissen achieved with her 10-year-old KWPN gelding, Sander by Feliciano. Hendrik Lochthowe claimed fifth on the Oldenburger stud stallion Rubin Cortes, the pair train with Silvia Iklé in Switzerland.
-- CHIO Aachen Press release
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