The Hamburg Dressage Derby is organized under a very different format than other  international competitions.  In the CDI3* division at Hamburg, there is the usual Grand Prix qualifier, then there are both Grand Prix Special and Freestyle to Music classes.  In the Hamburg Derby format, prior to the qualifier, each competitor must designate which class they would prefer to compete in, either GP Special or Freestyle.   Then the top twelve competitors in the qualifier move on to their designated classes.  

However, what makes this competition so special is the final class,  the Hamburg Dressage Derby itself.  It consists of a shortened Grand Prix test in which each qualified competitor rides his or her own horse - then the competitors switch horses and ride the test again.  The three top finishers in the GP qualifier are the finalists for the Dressage Derby.  The Hamburg Dressage Derby has been around for many years - sometimes with the horse-exchange format and sometimes not.  

This year the Thursday afternoon Grand Prix qualifier was won by Carola Koppelmann of Germany and her 17-year-old Hanoverian gelding, Le Bo, with 69.830%.   Close behind in 2nd place was Oliver Luze, also from Germany, riding the 12-year-old  Holsteiner stallion Helenenhof's Carabas with 69.319%.  Rounding out the top three was Belgian rider Vicky Smits-Vanderhasselt riding the Hanoverian mare Dalanira van de helle to a score of 67.872.  Unfortunately it was reported that the mare had a minor injury and was not able to participate in the the later classes.  Her place was taken by the 4th place finisher, Falk Rosenbauer of Germany riding the 9-year-old Hanoverian stallion Desparados with a score of 67.787%.

The next  CDI3* competition on Saturday morning was the Grand Prix Special which was won by Luze and Helenenhof's Carabas with a great score of 72.083%.   Susan Dutta of the US had a very strong showing with 10-year-old Oldenburg gelding Currency DC for 2nd place (67.667%).  Canadian rider Cheryl Meisner finished in 6th place on the 13-year-old Dutch gelding Paganini.

The Freestyle on Saturday evening was again dominated by Koppelmann and her very experienced Le Bo.  They scored 76.4%.  Catherine Haddad of the US had an excellent Freestyle with her young Hanoverian gelding Winyamaro and scored 70.0% to achieve 2nd place.  Rosenbauer and Desparados received 68.750% for a 4th place finish.

The anticipation was then building for the Sunday Derby.  All three of the horses going into this class had some interesting characteristic:  Koppelman's Le Bo, owned by her family, is 17-years-old.  He has been with her since he was a youngster and they had reached the highest level of the sport together, so his age  - and possibly his stamina following classes Thursday, Saturday, and again on Sunday having to perform three different tests - along with his long history with one rider - might prove to be factors in the competition.   

Helenenhof's Carabas had been purchased by Gestuet Tannenhof, where Luze was head trainer, after he and his wife had seen the horse as a youngster at the Holstein stallion selection.  Luze trained him through the levels and they won the very highly regarded Median Cup  Final competition for young Grand Prix horses in 2008.  Tannenhof then sold Carabas to Andreas Helgstrand to be his top dressage star not long after Helgstrand had left the Blue Hors stud to establish his own business.   After two years together, they hadn't really established a strong partnership and Helgstrand offered Carabas for sale.  Luze had been working with new owners, Jessica and Rainer Schweibert of Helenenhof, and early this year they bought Carabas for him to resume the ride.  The pair have been working together only for a few months prior to this competition to re-establish a strong partnership and regain their winning form.  It was going to be interesting to see how Carabas responded to two different riders under the Dressage Derby format.

Desparados, on the other hand, is a young stallion owned by the Sprehe Stud.  He is currently being shown in the Median Cup series, having won the Qualifying class at Hagen April 24.  So Desparados is just at the beginning of his career and does not have the experience perhaps to cope with the challenges of a very electric atmosphere to be found at a major final such as the Hamburg Derby along with the rider change.  

In the first round, Koppelmann went first on her Le Bo and had another strong test with a good score .  Luze was close behind,  while Rosenbauer had a bit of difficulty with Desparados in the piaffe and he was left a little behind in the scores going into the exchange..  

In the second round, Koppelmann's ride on Carabas presented a very different picture than we're used to seeing with Luze in the saddle - she had some lovely moments with him, but also ran into some difficulty with the one-time changes which brought her score down.    Rosenbauer, however, put in a very nice test with Le Bo, raising his score substantially.   Luze had a decent ride on Desparado but was unable to break the 1300/70% mark which dropped him down in the rankings a bit.

Finally, in the last rider switch, Koppelmann had a couple of issues with Desparado, also dropping her score a bit.   In Luze's test with Le Bo, they started off in the 70 range with lovely half-passes and strong work in the first passage-piaffe work.  However, the scores went down as the test went on and it looked as if Luze was considerate of a tiring Le Bo.  Interestingly  he  had a similar problem with the tempi changes as it seemed that Koppelmann had with Carabas earlier.  This put Rosenbauer in the lead and left Luze and Koppelmann  tied with the same score in second place

It was very impressive to see that each of the three riders, however strongly competitive they are,  were helping their opponents during the warm-up period to understand and ride their horses well!  In an interview after the class, Luze commented that they  were all professionals and even with his concerns at having so recently gotten Carabas back, the professionalism of each of them would certainly work for the horses'  benefit.

Results:

1.  Rosenbauer 1315 (Le Bo)   1287 (Carabas)     1254 (Desparado   T=3856

2.  Koppelmann 1362 (Le Bo)   1217 (Carabas) 1213 (Desparado)  T= 3792

2.  Luze         1228 (Le Bo)   1322 (Carabas)    1242 (Desparado)  T=3792

Le Bo   Koppelmann - 75.667%

Rosenbauer - 73.056%

Luze - 68.22%

Helenenhof's Carabas Luze - 73.444%

Rosenbauer - 71.500%

Koppelmann - 67.611%

Desperados Rosenbauer - 69.666%

Luze - 69.000%

Koppelmann - 67.389%