Most of the top national teams are built around one superstar. But if he risks too much while going for an individual gold medal and is knocked out, it usually also sends his team’s chances tumbling.

So the countries that have two–or, better yet, three–top-level performers can rise to the top with solid team scores, even if they lack individual medalists.

The air is extremely thin at the top of world-class four-in-hand driving. Scores are based on times measured now to one-hundredth of a second, and results are often only fractions of points apart. So any small glitch in the marathon obstacles, costing just an instant of delay, can send a top driver to the lower ranks.

It’s a select group of drivers at the top, quite a few of whom have been World Champions before, and while talent, experience, cool nerves and good horses usually come through to win, the margins are so slim that a good portion of luck is always needed as aggressive, young marathon drivers challenge the established leaders.

And so the big question this year for the U.S. four-in-hand team is: Can the drivers repeat the silver medal they won four years ago at the World Equestrian Games in Jerez, Spain? Or could they do even better in Aachen?

The U.S. team selection wasn’t completed until Aug. 8, but it was pretty certain that four-time national champion Chester Weber would be on Team USA, together with his similarly experienced teammate Tucker Johnson. They secured that silver medal in Jerez, with Johnson finishing fourth and Weber fifth out of 43 drivers from 17 nations.

But they couldn’t repeat that success at the World Championships two years ago in Hungary. While their dressage and cones were still very good, bad luck held up both on the marathon, leaving the team fifth.

Since then Johnson has been working on putting together a new team, which has lately come along excellently in dressage. But the new team hasn’t yet quite found the finesse and speed it needs on the marathon or in the cones. So Johnson is still working on living up to his former nickname, “King of Cones,” with his new team.

Weber’s dressage is solidly in the top ranks of the world’s leaders. He just proved that again with a first place in dressage at the Breda CAIO (the Netherlands). But he took time out from competing his team in Europe last year when was busy with coaching our pony and pair teams for their World Championships. Thus, he’s working hard to find his speed on the marathon against the ever-tougher European competition.

As of this writing, the third teammate was still an open position. Most likely it will be James Fairclough, also a member of the 2002 team and a team member since 1980. In Jerez, he took a great deal of pressure off his teammates by driving a perfect cones round.

But it could also be newcomer Jim Richards, who started his driving career just a few years ago under the tutelage of former World Champion and marathon expert Tomas Eriksson from Sweden. Richards competed as an individual two years ago in Hungary. He’s lately shown strong talent in some of the marathon obstacles, but he has still to prove that he can keep it all together for a strong finish.

It’s a given that the U.S. drivers will score very high in dressage, but will they be able to hold on to an early dressage lead through the marathon?

Advantage Germany
With a hometown advantage, the German team is in a very strong position for team and individual medals. Their team anchor is Michael Freund, who won individual gold in 1994 in The Hague (the Netherlands) and again two years ago in Hungary. He’s still battling a doping case from Hungary, which F�d�ration Eques-tre Internationale officials have decided in his favor, but two drivers who finished behind him and the organizer have filed an appeal that’s still pending.

Frustrated with this issue, Freund has announced that he’ll retire from the sport after Aachen. So this is his last chance to show the world once more how it’s done. He’s clearly one of the world’s leading drivers, showing top dressage, strong marathon and keeping his nerves completely under control in the cones.

But the doping case has cost him some concentration, and he’s also been busy helping the American team. He hopes to count on a good score from teammate Christoph Sandman, who brought home the individual silver from Jerez, but Sandman hasn’t shown many top performances lately.

Either Rainer Duen or Joseph Zeitler should complete the team. Each is an experienced competitor, but they won’t be in contention for one of the top spots individually. That means that if either Freund or Sandman has a problem, it will compromise the German team effort. That’s what happened two years ago in Hungary, where only Freund starred, sending Germany to a seventh-placed finish.

One of the strongest claims for the individual and team gold medals will certainly come from the Netherlands, led by superstar Ijsbrand Char-don, the only driver who’s won three World Four-in-Hand Championships (Apeldoorn 1988, Riesenbeck 1992 and Jerez 2002). He too can claim his own home-court advantage since Aachen is almost in his backyard from the Netherlands.

To get ready, he just won the CHIO Aachen in June for the eighth time. No one else can claim such victories.

Chardon’s strength is usually a grand opening with a great dressage test, which allows him to drive a slightly careful marathon. He then finishes it off with a double-clear cones round.

The Netherlands also had a late selection process, and three young drivers were forging ahead with very strong performances. Koos de Ronde and Mark Weusthof were Chardon’s teammates two years ago in Hungary, while Theo Timmermann is the newest “flying Dutchman.” De Ronde and Timmerman didn’t have good goes at the CHIO Aachen, which sent the Netherlands to an unusual fifth-placed finish there. But they won team gold in Jerez and silver in Hungary, and they just won again at the CAIO Breda.

Hungary is certainly a contender for a team medal too. It’s been one of the traditionally strong driving nations for many years, making up with aggressive marathons what they at times lack in dressage. On their home turf, they easily won team gold two years ago with Zoltan Lazar, their newcomer to the four-in-hand scene, winning individual silver. Zoltan and his brother Vilmos each hold individual gold medals from pairs driving, and Vilmos has taken up team driving now too.

We’ll surely see 2004 gold-medal teammate Jozsef Dobrovitz again in the team.

And newcomer Attila Bardos–whose father, Gyorgi Bardos, holds three World Championship individual medals–will also fight for a spot. The young Hungarians will drive fast, aggressively and take risks.

Belgian Challenge
We can’t count Belgium and Switzerland out, though.

Belgium has Felix Brasseur, who won the World Championship in 1996 and finished fourth in 2004. Brasseur performs best in dressage, but at times he doesn’t show as much strength in the marathon.

He’s supported by his steady teammates Gert Schrijvers, who drives an unusual team of Friesian-Arabian crosses nicknamed the “Turbo Friesians,” and by newcomer Geert de Brauwer. While neither Schrijvers nor de Brauwer have reached the top ranks individually, their steady performances often bring their team to the top ranks. That’s just what happened in June at Aachen, where the Belgian team was victorious. They also claimed second in Breda.

Switzerland’s top driver, Werner Ulrich, will make a strong claim for the individual gold. He was World Champion in 1998, but he also holds a World Pairs Championship title from 1991. Ulrich has built a new team with Swiss precision and is in top form now, finishing second at Aachen behind Chardon and winning at Breda, where Brasseur was second and Chardon third. (Freund didn’t compete there).

Ulrich is supported by veteran Daniel Wuergler and by young Stephan Klay, whose strength is in the marathon. The Swiss team drove to third place at Aachen, only 2 points behind Belgium and 1 point behind Hungary. They beat Germany by 4 points and the Netherlands by 9. In Breda, Switzerland was fourth, only .1 points behind third-placed Hungary. Both of these results indicate again how close they all are to each other.

And we can’t completely ignore Sweden, which has a very experienced team with Tomas Eriksson, Jan Erik (Nikki) Pahlson and Fredrik Persson. They’ve competed with each other for many years, and they won the team gold in 2000, when Eriksson also won individual gold. But they’ll have to fight very hard to get into the medals this time.

Aachen’s organizers expect 58 drivers from 19 nations, and I really don’t expect anyone from the other 11 nations to threaten for a medal. But, as we have just seen at another World Championships–soccer, for example–if the ball (or the carriage wheels) is round, there could always be surprises.

Hardy Zantke, Torrance, Calif., was the chef d’equipe when the U.S. four-in-hand team won the silver medal at the 2002 World Equestrian Games. All told, he’s been a team chef d’equipe 12 times, for four-in-hands, ponies, pairs and drivers with disabilities.