FEI Jumping European Championship: Team Germany overtakes Sweden

FEI Jumping European Championship 2023, Milano (ITA) – Written by Louise Parkes

Team Germany overtook Sweden to rise to the top of the leaderboard on the second day of the FEI Jumping European Championship 2023 in Milan (Thursday 31), but the difference between the top three sides is only fractional going into Friday’s team medal decider.

A tally of 9.31 gives Germany just 0.2 penalty points of an advantage over Sweden with 9.51, while the defending champions from Switzerland lie third with 9.92 followed closely by Ireland on a 10-point scoreline. 

It could hardly be tighter, and it’s a recipe for a thriller right to the end.

Meanwhile another superb performance from Sweden’s Jens Fredricson and Markan Cosmopolit has maintained their place at the top of the individual leaderboard. 

A costly mistake at the very last fence saw Switzerland’s Martin Fuchs and Leone Jei drop from overnight second spot to 15th place, so another super-smooth performance from Germany’s Philipp Weishaupt and Zineday has moved them up from third up to second, while Fuchs’ team-mate Steve Guerdat is now lying third with Dynamix de Belheme.

And there are still four nations left in the race for one of the three qualifying spots on offer for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games – Switzerland, Austria, Italy and Spain. The Netherlands, France and Great Britain complete Friday’s line-up when only the top 10 countries will do battle in the final round of the team competition along with the top 50 individuals in the rankings so far.

Great Britain had another difficult day. It was Ben Maher and Faltic HB who produced the best round with a clear for the team to finish the day in 10th place above Belguim. Harry Charles, Tim Gredley and Samuel Hutton all picked up penalties.

Swedes lose their grip

The Swedes lost their grip on pole position when, despite superb clears from from both Fredricson and Henrik von Eckermann riding Iliana, they had to count one of the eight-fault results posted by both Wilma Hellström and Cicci BJN and their anchor partnership of Rolf-Göran Bengtsson and Zuccero. 

In contrast, Germany only had to add the four picked up by pathfinders Marcus Ehning and Stargold when both Weishaupt and Jana Wargers were foot-perfect over Thursday’s considerably more testing 14-fence track. German anchor, Gerrit Nieberg, racked up 12 faults with Ben but that would be their discard when the best three results per team were counted.

Only Guerdat jumped clear for Switzerland so they had to add both of the four faults picked up by Fuchs and Bryan Balsiger partnering Dubai du Bois Pinchet while Edouard Schmitz’s double-error with Gamin van’t Naastveldhof was their drop-score.

After clears for both Michael Duffy with Cinca 3 and Shane Sweetnam with James Kann Cruz the Irish looked set to threaten the Swiss but last-line rider Eoin McMahon and the mare Mila were one of many partnerships to fall victim to the big oxer three from home that followed the open water. Those four faults had to be counted because Trevor Breen and Highland President left two on the floor. But there is only a whisper between the top four when the action resumes Friday.

Jumping clear

A total of 14 horse-and-rider combinations jumped clear and they were all full of praise for the tracks set for them so far this week. 

“The course was super, all compliments to him (course designer Uliano Vezzani) also from yesterday”, said world number one Henrik von Eckermann after finishing his fault-free run.

“Today there are some big jumps out there but they are not completely demanding on the horse. But you need to be able to ride accurately, to have all the gears to go forward, backwards for the last line, to the water, to the triple combination.”

Henrik von Eckermann SWE

So it’s asking a lot from the rider and I think that’s how it should be. If you ride good you have good chances, and not only that it’s the last hole on the jumps”, he pointed out.

“I felt a little bit of pressure after Germany’s clear and Steve’s clear and I wanted to give them (the rest of the Swedish team) a good feeling and I think I did. We still have the drop score in our pocket and I hope we don’t need to use it”, he said after coming out of the ring. Unfortunately however they did…

Flawless for a medal

Weishaupt’s rides with Zineday have been flawless, and he’s clearly already eyeing up not just a team medal but an individual one as well.

“So far it’s only two days of competition but Zineday felt very good in the warm-up, I had an amazing feeling yesterday in the speed class, he was really relaxed and focused. And today he continued what he showed yesterday, his great performance, his great talent and it was a pleasure to ride him and I hope we can keep that form for the next three rounds!”,

he said.

Talking about the nine-year-old Oldenburg gelding he said his expectations were always high coming to Milan.

“He was third in the Grand Prix of Aachen and if you are selected for the German team they expect you are capable of jumping that level so I was expecting this”.

He described Italy’s Uliano Vezzani as “a fantastic course designer! 

“We had a fantastic speed class yesterday, it wasn’t the biggest jumps but he showed all his experience with the beautiful way he built.”

And he described Zineday as “a bit special, he has his own head so you have to leave him a little bit like he is, but he has just tremendous qualities”.

Dream week

Meanwhile Jens Fredricson’s dream FEI Jumping European Championship week continues. He goes into Friday’s competition on a zero score, but Weishaupt is only 0.31 behind followed by Guerdat, the flying Frenchman Julien Epaillard with Dubai du Cedre, von Eckermann in fifth and Italy’s Emanuele Camille in sixth with Odense Odeveld. In the individual standings there is less than a fence between the top 14, but there is a long way to go before the new individual champion is crowned next Sunday.

It’s still pretty extraordinary to be leading the posse with a horse that was originally bought for the Swedish riding school in Strömsholm but who proved too naughty to do his job there. So he eventually found Jens in the saddle and together they finished third at the Longines FEI Jumping World Cup™ Final 2022 in Leipzig (GER) before helping to take the team world title in Herning (DEN) a few months later.

“I’m enjoying myself, it’s a fantastic show and my horse is in great form!”, Fredricson said this evening. To find himself in individual contention at a championship is a first-time experience, and he is relishing it.

“I’ve been around, I’ve been in some finals but I’ve never really been up there. So to have a horse like this when you are 55 is special. He’s like a cat now, he can lengthen and shorten and he’s self-confident – he’s just a great horse!”, he pointed out. 

He didn’t have to listen to any rock music before he went in the ring.  

“Yesterday I needed to get in in a better mood so I was listening to Iron Maiden but not today because I had almost too much energy, I was almost jumping around so I think Beethoven would have been better!”

He’ll need to be relaxed and focused when the last page of the story of the FEI Jumping European Team Championship 2023 is written Friday afternoon at 13.30 local time.

Results and Startlists here