By the time Christoph Sandmann, the final German driver, began his cones round, Sept. 2, his teammates Michael Freund and Rainer Duen had already secured the top team prize at the FEI World Equestrian Games.

But even as they celebrated their win–and Sandmann’s individual bronze medal–in Aachen, Germany, the future of the German driving team seemed uncertain. Freund, 52, had announced that this event would be his last, and Sandmann implied that he wouldn’t enjoy the sport as much without his friend.

“It will be quite hard for me,” said Sandmann, who hasn’t made a decision yet about whether to continue competing. “We did it together and have had so much success together, Freund and me, and I don’t know if I can motivate at home alone.”

Freund will, instead, turn his attention to coaching U.S. drivers Chester Weber and Tucker Johnson, who competed, along with James Fairclough, on the eighth-placed team in Aachen. Freund spends the winter–from October through April–working with Weber and Johnson in the United States, and Johnson generally keeps four or five horses in Freund’s stable.

But Freund said there’s really only one way for the U.S. drivers to improve. “They have to compete in Europe,” he said. “They need to become more competitive, have more motivation.”

While Weber has clearly mastered the dressage, which he won in Aachen, as he had at European events earlier this summer, he’s working hard to improve his other phases, with the goal of earning an individual medal in 2010. “He wants perfection,” said Freund.

After winning the dressage, Weber dropped to seventh on the marathon. He might have finished as high as fifth (the same ranking he had in 2002, when the U.S. team won the silver medal), but his lapse of concentration in the cones phase resulted in elimination for going off course. Even if he’d had a perfect cones round, however, the U.S. team would have been out of the medal hunt.

Weber started the cones strong and appeared to be keenly focused on completing a double-clear round, but as he rounded the turn for Obstacle 10, he went a bit to the right and ended up going backward through 9B instead.

“I just told him to look ahead, to two years from now [and the next World Champion-ships],” said Freund with a shrug.

Freund, one of the most decorated drivers in the sport, finished fifth individually in his final competition. He has also earned team and individual gold in 1994, team gold in 1992 and seven other silver and bronze medals. “I think I got what I wanted, and I can retire as a World Champion,” he said.

For the Germans, there’s at least one promising young driver soon to be coming up the ranks–that’s Marco Freund, Michael’s son. “Perhaps I might be back [to Aachen], in 10 years, when my son competes in the CHIO,” he said.

The Individual Battle
All week in Aachen, Freund tried to put behind him the controversy that’s surrounded his 2004 individual title, which he lost after his horse, Mary 24, tested positive for valerenic acid, which Freund suspects she must have ingested while grazing.

The FEI Judicial Committee acquitted Freund, but it was, ironically, WEG individual gold medalist Felix Marie Brasseur and eighth-placed Zoltan Lazar who brought the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which reversed the FEI’s decision just a few weeks before the WEG, on Aug. 10.

Freund’s disqualification by the CAS gave Lazar the gold medal from 2004, resulting in Ysbrand Chardon getting the silver and Brasseur the bronze. This situation and the accusation of some of his fellow drivers contributed to Freund’s decision to leave the sport.

In addition to the bronze medal Brasseur belatedly received from 2004, he won team and individual titles in 1996 and an individual bronze in 2000. He came into the cones phase in second place, just 1 point behind Chardon, and put the pressure on when he turned in the fastest time of the day, almost 8 seconds under the optimum time. He kept his horses at a fast, smooth pace and hardly ever had to check them.

The 54-year-old, from Marchin, Belgium, drives a team of Lusitanos, of which he’s very proud.

“Everybody thinks they are only good for dressage and bullfighting,” he said. “But they can do everything. They are fast in the obstacles and a really good type of horse for everybody, for pleasure, for all disciplines except jumping.”

And Brasseur spends most of his time with them. “You have to work a lot,” he said. “When you’re a rider, you have one horse, which is not a lot. When you’re a team driver, you have to work all day, every day of the year. So we have to like it a lot.”

Chardon, usually so hard to beat in the cones phase, had an uncharacteristic ball down at Obstacle 14, which cost him the individual gold medal.

“I was unbelievably disappointed,” he said. “We went through [Obstacle] 12 well, but on the way to 13, my left wheeler jumped to the side. He never makes that kind of mistake, and it gave me a terrible feeling. I knew immediately that I’d dropped from first place, and I had to stay clear to keep the silver.”

Chardon, of the Netherlands, has won the individual World Championship three times before. While he couldn’t add a fourth title, his score was still enough to bring home a bronze medal for the Netherlands with team-mates Koos De Ronde and Theo Timmerman.

Good Start But Tough Finish
The marathon took its toll on the U.S. team, starting with Weber, who placed 20th in that phase (seventh overall after the first two phases), after having to replace a horse who seemed sore after dressage.

“We did as well as we could, considering,” Weber said. He thought the fifth complex was especially technical. “My right wheeler got quite tired,” he said.

Weber lost time at the main water complex, Hazard 3, which had also been the main water complex for the eventers but had been hastily remodeled, including the addition of a major bridge. “I made a clear driver mistake,” he said. “The right wheeler’s trace came loose, and the quick-release knot came undone.” Once through the hazard, his grooms had to dismount to fix it.

The first driver on course, Fred Obernauer of Austria, became stuck in Hazard 6, and Weber was held there but didn’t mind the delay. “It gave my horses a chance to breathe,” he said.

Johnson had a few stops in Hazard 7, the Arabian Oasis, but drove an otherwise solid marathon to stand 10th overnight and finish the event in 14th overall.

“I did my best,” he said. “The left leader is really strong. I stopped three times to make the curb chain tighter, then looser, then tighter again. He pushed the other leader out, and I didn’t have enough loop.”

Johnson said the first hazard went better than he expected, and in the second hazard, he came in conservatively but built momentum. “In the water I had one horse get confused about where I wanted him to be,” he said. “Getting back up to speed costs energy in the water.”

He said the course was tough: “You’re con-stantly going up and downhill; there’s never a spot on firm, level ground, where the carriage is rolling slowly. I’m very satisfied, although I’m disappointed with the one mistake.”

Johnson, who can usually be counted on in the cones, encountered trouble when his right leader, Eminenz 22, got a bit rambunctious and refused to follow Johnson’s instructions.

“He’s new to me,” said Johnson. “We’re going to have a word about this when we get home. These horses aren’t young, but they’re inexperienced.”

Johnson started having trouble in the serpentine at Obstacles 7ABC and then had the ball down on No. 10. He had to be cautious after that, incurring 7.09 time penalties.

“I sped up as best I could after 10, but I’m a little disappointed to take that many time penalties,” he said. “If they slow down in the technical elements, it’s impossible to get the time.”

Fairclough, who was 22nd after the marathon, used his two leaders together in that phase for only the second time. “They did phenomenally,” he said. “I’ve been trying to get them together all season.”

In the cones, Fairclough turned in a clear round but earned 1.72 time penalties to finish 20th overall. Only five drivers steered to double-clear rounds.

“I didn’t realize I was that slow,” said Fairclough, who competed in his first World Championships in 1980. “I’m not sure where I lost a couple of seconds.”

A New Aachen Course
Course designer Wolfgang Asendorf of Germany has built the Aachen marathon course since 2002 for the CHIO. This, however, was a new course on the Soers farm where the cross-country course was held, instead of the woods usually used for the Aachen event.

“This course was really horse friendly, and the spectators could see so many of the fences,” said individual silver medalist Ysbrand Chardon of the Netherlands. “You had the feeling the public was always with you.”

Drivers were most concerned about the first hazard, the technical Mercedes-Benz complex on the side of a hill. “I would have preferred that it be the fifth fence,” Chardon said. “It was technically a beautiful fence, but it was very difficult. There it was easy to see if a driver was technically good or not.”

Asendorf defended his placement of the first hazard and the decision to make it so demanding: “I believe if it had been the third or fourth hazard, the horses would have been more tired and it would have been even harder, and we could have seen more accidents.”

Two carriages, one driven by Barry Capstick of Ireland and one driven by Bert Brans of Netherlands Antilles, tipped over at this first hazard, and while no horses were injured, Capstick badly bruised a leg. Brans’ wife, who was navigating, was taken to the hospital, but did not have any serious injuries.

Beth Rasin