With a wow effect to the second stop: Hamburg
“Completely over the moon!”, ‘Unbelievable!’, ”Fantastic!” - the Louisdor Prize has started its 19th season with a wow effect. At the Al Shira'aa German Show Jumping & Dressage Derby 2025, the series invites Germany's best young Grand Prix horses to the second stop.
“We saw such great horses and the riding was very good. It was fantastic,” enthused Dr. Evi Eisenhardt, judge of the competition and also board member of the Liselott and Klaus Rheinberger Foundation, which has made the Louisdor Prize possible since 2012, after the first final qualifier in Hagen.
That makes you want more! This important young rider series has already been held in Hamburg in the past and is now returning to the Anrecht Investment Dressurarena after a break of several years. Station number two is on the program there from 28 May to 1 June, followed by Wiesbaden, Donzdorf and Guxhagen. In December - traditionally since 2012 - the final qualifiers will meet in Frankfurt's Festhalle and choose the best of the year.
Of the 18 Louisdor Prize final winners to date, nine have competed in a championship, six of them at the Olympic Games. The Louisdor Prize has long proven to be an ideal springboard for top international sport.
Hamburg's new show director in the Anrecht-Investment Dressurarena is also aiming for top-class sport. That is why, in addition to the Almased German Dressage Derby and the German Pony Dressage Derby - both with horse and pony changes - he has also announced a five-star dressage tour with Grand Prix Special and freestyle - without horse changes. In this way, Rath brings a modern, top-class sporting touch to Hamburg, but still retains tradition. The Derby has been held in Hamburg with a change of horses since 1955; the youngest Derby winner of all time was Kathleen Kröncke from Hamburg in 2011, who was 21 years old at the time and still went by the name Kathleen Keller. She secured the 'Blue Riband' again in 2022 and the mother of two has also announced that she will be back in 2025.
At the end of 2020, Kathleen Kröncke and her Nikolas moved to the Cotswold region in England, with their horses of course. “We feel incredibly at home here,” she enthuses four and a half years later. “England is an absolute horse country.” She still visits Germany regularly, not least to visit her parents Manuela and Dolf Keller, but at the moment she can't imagine going back completely. “Even though the effort is much greater than before, I'm really looking forward to being back at the Derby this year. It will always be a bit like 'coming home'.” In the past, she had to travel just under ten minutes from Hof Etzer Heide in Appen, where she ran a dressage training stable. Now she travels from England, especially after Brexit, the 'paperwork' alone is enormous. This year, derby specialist Kröncke is not necessarily primarily aiming for the derby again, she will probably take the opportunity to compete with the 15-year-old Hanoverian mare Uniteds Märchen in the five-star tour, which is being held for the first time.
So all doors are open for another Hamburg fairytale with Kathleen Kröncke...
(KiK/pe&pa)