Although some competition has been underway for the past couple of days in Aachen, the Official Opening Ceremony took place on Tuesday for the World Equestrian Festival, CHIO Aachen.
The event, which features five Nation’s Cup classes with competition in jumping, dressage, vaulting, carriage driving and of course eventing, takes place from July 11th – 20th this year and is a highlight on the equestrian calendar – even in a year when all eyes are on Normandy!
The pomp and ceremony of Aachen is reflected in its Opening Ceremony with tradition and spectacle taking place side by side as well as a celebration of a partner country, which is Switzerland this year (hence all of the cow bells and Swiss flags you’ll see in the video below)
It is fitting then that the Swiss rider show jumping Steve Guerdat is considered a serious candidate with his top horse, Nino de Buissonnets, to win the Rolex Grand Prix here. If he did, he would win a bonus of 500,000 Euros for consecutively winning two of the three major shows - CHI Geneva, CHIO Aachen and the Spruce Meadows `Masters´ that make up the Rolex Grand Slam. Any rider who wins the Grand Prix at each of these shows in succession will be rewarded with a €1 million bonus prize and, as the winner in Geneva, Steve is in pole position to do just that
Other highlights of the event are the Deutsche Bank Prize Grand Prix Dressage of Aachen (Grand Prix Freestyle) on Sunday 20th which was won last year by Germany’s own Helen Langehanenberg riding Damon Hill NRW, the DHL Prize eventing competition on Friday 18th and Saturday 19th, won by Australia’s Chris Burton in 2013 riding Holstein Park Leilani and another Australian, Boyd Exell also took out the other major competition here in 2013 (pictured below) - the four-in-hand driving marathon competition. Boyd is aiming for his seventh Aachen win and will front up with an almost replica of his 2013 winning team of horses; Capone II, Curios, Monty, Spitfire and Winston.
In the eventing this year Chris Burton will be competing on Graf Liberty alongside his FEI Nations Cup team members Andrew Hoy (Rutherglen), Kevin McNab (Clifton Pinot) and Paul Tapner (Kilronan).
