Peters Does The United States Proud At Aachen

He and Ravel celebrate the Fourth of July in Germany with a clean sweep of the Grand Prix CDIO.

Steffen Peters arrived in Aachen, Germany, as the reigning Rolex FEI World Cup Champion and left with another unprecedented victory—winning all three Grand Prix classes in the CDIO at the Aachen World Equestrian Festival, held June 26-July 5.

No U.S. rider since Robert Dover in 1987 has won the Grand Prix of Aachen, and no American citizen has ever won the Grand Prix Champion of Aachen, a title that goes to the rider with the highest scores in all three Grand Prix tests.

Peters, 44, left Germany for San Diego, Calif., in 1985, but the Aachen public celebrated him like a hometown hero.

There was little else for the German fans to cheer about—without their superstar Isabell Werth, who couldn’t compete due to an ongoing doping investigation (July 10, p. 58)—the team finished a disappointing second to the Netherlands. No German riders could be found in the top three in the CDIO, a sad letdown for a competition that has seen a German champion 16 times in the past 20 years.
 
Aachen also allowed Peters to prove that his World Cup victory aboard Ravel in Las Vegas, Nev., wasn’t due to being on U.S. soil or the fact that top rider Anky van Grunsven brought her second-string mount.

Peters and Akiko Yamazaki’s 11-year-old Dutch Warmblood gelding (Contango—Hautain) started the weekend off with a bang by winning the Grand Prix (77.83%) by more than five percentage points over the Netherlands’ Hans Peter Minderhoud and Exquis Nadine (72.46%).

“The CHIO Aachen is the best horse show in the world,” said Peters. “After winning the World Cup Final in Las Vegas, it was important for me to present Ravel here at Aachen and to measure him against the best combinations in the world. To do very well with him here became a dream of mine when we stayed here on the Aachen show grounds during our quarantine before going to Hong Kong last year [for the 2008 Olympic Games].”

Van Grunsven’s IPS Salinero wasn’t on his game in the Grand Prix, and the Dutch Olympic champion had to share fifth place with Germany’s Matthias Rath (71.36%) after an extremely tense, hot ride.

“I was a better trainer than rider,” she admitted. “Salinero was nervous—he spooked in the trot, and that cost me valuable points. That wasn’t good enough, and I have mixed feelings—I am pleased about the team victory, but I would have liked to have won the competition.”

She managed to give Peters a hard fight in the next two tests. He eked out a win in the Special (76.91%) over van Grunsven (76.58%), but everyone wondered if Peters would be able to beat the “Freestyle Queen” the following day.

Van Grunsven certainly laid down a challenge with her high score (84.50%), but there were a few places where the 15-year-old Hanoverian gelding could’ve improved. He didn’t always produce a clear four-beat walk, and he was foiled again by his nemesis—the final halt—at the end of the test.

Her freestyle still demonstrated outstanding artistic value, however, and the extended gaits showed a lengthening of the frame, while the piaffes looked smooth and rhythmic. When Peters and Ravel performed a problematic first canter pirouette, it looked like he might have to leave victory to the Dutch combination, but he laid down the rest of his very difficult freestyle test flawlessly, and Ravel demonstrated great ease and expression for 85.60 percent.