Ingrid Klimke (Münster) with Franziskus and Benjamin Werndl (Aubenhausen) with Famoso led defending champion Germany to an almost certain medal spot at the Dressage World Championships in Herning on the first day.
Klike and Werndl showed flawless performances in the arena on Saturday August 8th, 2022) and were rewarded with personal top marks in the second most difficult international dressage test. Hosts Denmark lead by a razor-thin margin, followed by the Netherlands in third place behind the German team.
Their top rider Dinja van Liere with her extraordinary, only ten-year-old stallion Hermes got the day’s highest score with 78.214 percentage points. Second best in the individual ranking was Werndl with 77.003.
Klimke submits with Francis
Ingrid Klimke couldn’t get the smile off her face after her ride. “He did a great job, didn’t he?” she asked the group and received nods of approval from all sides. With her 14-year-old Hanoverian stallion Franziskus, Klimke was the starting rider at her championship debut in the German dressage team. Her 75.683 percentage points were the sixth-best performance of the day.
When riding in, Klimke had a moment of shock. “Franz just shrugged“, she reported: “I just thought, don’t give me so much applause now.“But the stallion recovered quickly and delivered like never before this year.”He was totally with me the whole time” said Klimke, “you never really know with him, but today he was right on point.”
Decision on Sunday – with Werth and Wandres
The decision will be made in the second part on Sunday, then the seven-time Olympic champion Isabell Werth (Rheinberg/4.05 p.m.) with Quantaz and the two-time German runner-up Fredric Wandres (Hagen aTW/7.45 p.m.) with Duke of Britain will start for Germany. The last rider for Denmark is crowd favorite Cathrine Dufour with Vamos Amigos, for Great Britain is the three-time Olympic champion Charlotte Dujardin with the mighty Imhotep on the square.
The three best riders of each team are rated, the worst result is discarded. The 30 best individual riders in the Grand Prix, a maximum of three per nation, qualify for the Grand Prix Special, in which the first individual medals will be awarded on Monday. The 15 best in the special start on Wednesday in the final Grand Prix Freestyle.