2005 CDIO Aachen

Brink Soars to the Top in a Sensational Grand Prix Special

August 27, 2005 - Text Astrid Appels/Eurodressage.com, photos by phelpsphotos.com

What a sensational Grand Prix Special. Anyone who said that dressage is boring stands corrected here in Aachen. Top riders making mistakes, horses freaking out in the ring, and quality finally surfacing to the top. The complete board got reshuffled today and, to say the least, it's been incredibly exciting and shocking at the shocking at the same time!

Swedish Jan Brink soared to the top of the leader board after a mistake free ride aboard his Swedish warmblood stallion Bjorsells Briar. The extended trots could have been more engaged, but the piaffe passage tour was delightful. He scored 76.400% and that proved to be the winning score as the last rider to go, Anky van Grunsven, could not settle down her Hanoverian gelding Salinero who bolted into the ring doing single changes on the center line before doing a piaffe-halt.

Anky kept her cool and showed her mastership at making the best out of it, but Salinero was just overcooked. She tried to temper him by slowing down the piaffe, which looked good, but the passage became a piaffe barely moving forward. After the pi-pa serpentine, Salinero seemed calmer, but the transition to canter with a small jump in the air proved that the tension was still there and it stayed there in the canter tour. Definitely an off-day for the Dutch combination, who was in the lead after the Grand Prix. Anky scored 70.960% and placed thirteenth in the Special.

Jan Brink was of course ecstatic with his first victory at such an international caliber show as the CDIO Aachen. "It's nice to win, he went very well" Brink explained. "especially because I felt the horse was on the aids and taking me forwards. We made no mistakes and there lots of power and no tension."