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Edward Gal Rides to Victory in The Prize of The VUV
By Media Release
Jul 2, 2008

German team on the way to a Nations’ Cup victory

Heike Kemmer (Winsen) cheered as she rode out of the dressage arena, accompanied by thunderous applause from the spectators. After the first part of the MEGGLE Prize, the Grand Prix of the CDIO Tour, the team World Champion is clearly heading the interim results on the 15-year-old gelding Bonaparte with a score of 72.250. This put the German team in the lead in the interim classification of the Lambertz Nations' Cup, which will be decided tomorrow. After the performances of the first two riders today, the German team currently ranks first with a total score of 139.0 points, followed by Sweden (135.208) and the Netherlands (134.583).
Vice World Champion, Kemmer's Bonaparte was in good form and made no mistakes, unfortunately things didn't run as smoothly for the newcomer Matthias-Alexander Rath (Kronberg). The 23-year-old rider, who has been causing a sensation on the dressage scene for the past three months and who won the men's title at the German Championships in Balve at the beginning of June, made a few mistakes with Sterntaler-Unicef and was awarded a score of 66.750 percent, rank 8 in the interim results. "I would really like to have repeated the performance I gave in Balve, especially with the Olympic Games in mind. But unfortunately the fine tuning between myself and Sterntaler wasn't quite right today," Rath explained. "I will do everything in my power to make sure that this first impression is forgotten when I ride the Grand Prix Spécial on Friday."

The second part of the Grand Prix competition continues on Thursday at 2 p.m. Nadine Capellmann (Aachen)/Elvis and Isabell Werth (Rheinberg)/Satchmo will be competing for Germany.

www.chioaachen.de

Edward Gal Rides to Victory in The Prize of The VUV

Klimke competes in both dressage and eventing

The dressage riders were in action for the first time at the CHIO Aachen 2008 early in the morning. The so-called small tour, comprising of the Prix St. Georges, the Prize of the VUV-Vereinigte Unternehmerverbände, was on the agenda. Even if it wasn't completely unanimous, the judges' verdict was quite clear: With a score of 73.250 percent, the Dutch rider, Edward Gal, rode to victory on the 8-year-old black stallion Moorlands Totilas, ahead of the Australian rider, Hayley Beresford on the Oldenburg mare, Rhapsodie Queen, also an eight-year-old horse, followed by Ingrid Klimke (Münster), who had saddled the 8-year-old Westphalian stallion, Damon Hill NRW. Four of the five judges had clearly seen Gal at the top of the field, only the Belgian judge, Mariette Withages (judge at B), put him in sixth place.

Incidentally, Ingrid Klimke is taking part in two disciplines here in Aachen: As well as competing in the dressage, she is also a member of the German eventing team and will be riding FRH Butts Abraxxas in the Nations' Cup on Friday and Saturday. She is hoping to earn herself a ticket to Hong Kong with this horse.