Spanish Junior Lilly Martinez Jacobs Declares for Germany

Dressage

Spain

Spanish junior rider team member Lilly Martinez Jacobs has declared for Germany and will no longer compete for Spain.

The 17-year old German based Martinez will turn 18 on 14 October and in agreement with her parents decided for Germany.

From Ponies to Juniors

Martinez made her international show debut in 2019 aboard the then 6-year old Brandenburg bred TI Drei D (by Dreidimensional AT x Don Girovanni). She competed him first at the CDI Leudelange, where she scored 68.524% in her first international test. She was selected as a non-travelling reserve for the Spanish team for the 2019 European Pony Championships. The pair went on to ride at the CDI Aachen Indoors in November 2019. It was Lilly's last year on ponies.

Tahani Ibrahim, the breeder and owner of Drei D, reallocated the ride on the pony to Georgina Kraft as of 2021.

With TI Drei D at the 2019 CDI Leudelange

Lilly moved on to horses with the now 14-year old Thuringia bred Janosch (by Johnson x Samba Hit I) and smoothly transitioned to international junior level. They showed at the CDI Grote Brogel and CDI Hagen before getting selected on the Spanish team for the 2020 European Junior Riders Championships in Budapest, where they were 21st in the individual test with 68.177%.

Dual Citizenship

Lilly Martinez Jacobs holds dual citizenship but in her 18th year she decided to ride for Germany.

"Spain unfortunately doesn’t accept a double citizenship when turning 18. I was born in Berlin and my mother is German," Martinez told Eurodressage. "I decided to take German citizenship."

With competition at all youth levels being incredibly fierce in Germany, Lilly has limited her chances for team selection, compared to Spain, yet can now take advantage of the German team training sessions and potential squad privileges.

"We applied for an exemption for dual citizenship in Spain. It's just a long bureaucratic process. We hope that it will be granted," Lilly added.

Life in Germany

Her first important outing as a German junior was getting selected for the 2021 Preis der Besten in Warendorf, where she finished 18th overall after scoring 65.595% and 64.868%.

With Janosch at the 2021 Preis der Besten

"Sadly, Joshi and I didn’t manage to perform as usual this weekend," Lilly took to Instagram. "Sometimes we win, sometimes we learn. When we don’t learn something, we loose. We will come back stronger."

Martinez is no newcomer to the German competition scene. In 2019 she steered her pony TI Drei D to a fourth place in the 6-year old Finals at the 2019 Bundeschampionate. Aboard Mastro's Cooper Ixes (by Crazy Dynamic JK x Molenhorn's Winston) she won bronze at the 2020 Bundeschampionate.

She trains with Natalie Soujon and Christian Flamm.