Last year Laura Bechtolsheimer and her British team-mates were firmly in the spotlight at the CDI Hagen, and now Laura's back as Laura Tomlinson, but still with her Danish gelding Mistral Hojris. She has won the Grand Prix for Special on Friday 20 April 2013. Laura and Mistral were like clockwork in the Grand Prix and posted a winning score of 79.064%.
Tomlinson returned to the show ring with Mistral for the first time since winning individual bronze and team gold at the 2012 Olympic Games in London back in August. Laura gave her 18-year old Danish warmblood gelding plenty of time off after the Games while she focused on planning her March 2013 wedding in Switzerland to long-time boyfriend Mark Tomlinson.
Early Friday morning the ‘landlady’ of Hof Kasselmann managed a similar victory. Bianca Kasselmann triumphed with Weltclassiker in the Grand Prix Special, the second qualification for the final of the 2013 German Professional Riders Championship.
With that win, the defending champion in the German Professional Riders Championship secured her place in the final. There she will meet Max Wadenspanner (Aachen) on Bandor, last year’s finalists, and Thomas Wagner from Bad Homburg with Amoricelli. Wagner, a 31-year-old professional rider, is competing in the championship for the first time.
"I’m really looking forward to it” says Wagner, “and it will be pretty nerve-wracking for me, as normally no one else rides Amoricelli”.
“Yes, I’m looking forward to it too” says Bianca Kasselmann, who like last year is relying on her old hand, offspring of Welt Hit, Weltclassiker.
And after Laura Tomlinson and Bianca Kasselmann ticked off their to-do list, Under 25 rider Sanneke Rothenberger won the preparatory test for the Piaff Foundation Prize. This young rider, who has won the European Championships for Juniors and Young Riders many times, has made a seamless transition to Grand Prix level. Virtually without a care in the world, she has been riding from success to success, studying in Canada the last few months. Rothenberger won the test aboard the Rhinelander gelding Favourit, who has previously been ridden by top Swedish rider Tinne Vilhelmson-Silfven.
Photos © Astrid Appels
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