Aachen is considered the world’s most prestigious horse show — and this year it’s considered to be a dress rehearsal for the Olympics. Given the setting, it’s hard to imagine the pressure that Matthias Rath must have felt as he rode in on the world’s most famous dressage horse as the rider who took Totilas away from Edward Gal.
His three wins there must have been particularly sweet.
But did he and Totilas really deliver the best performances? Or is he still enjoying the halo effect of Gal’s success on the horse? There are some who think that Steffen Peters and Ravel deserved the win in the Grand Prix Freestyle.
Here are videos of the two tests. What do you think?
Personally I think Ravel moved like a horse while Totilas moved like a pogo stick- all up and no forward.
The rider and horse who give the best performance “deserves” to win, of course, and obviously Rath gave the best performance here, that is why they gave him his wins at Aachen.
We cannot judge by anything other than performances in the ring, now can we? What would we otherwise do, devise a handicapping scheme based somehow on how riders came by their horses? This is the Olympics. Paters purchased her horse as well, and no doubt paid for at least some of its training. Others competing against Peters perhaps could not afford a horse like hers either. Such is the world.
For people to grouse about money in equestrian sports is absurd; it is a sport primarily for the wealthy, and it is they who must in the end support it; it is not like soccer where some kids can roll up a pair of socks and kick it around in the back streets of Cairo.
As to that horse: He is just amazing, what a showman he is, how much he seem to enjoy it. He just eats up the crowds attention. It is like watching the greatest of concert pianists effortlessly preforming the greatest, most demanding music flawlessly and profoundly. One can almost imagine that he would do it all by himself without a rider should he be given the chance. One suspects that this is much of his allure. Just amazing movement, character and attitude. One find it hard to think of him as “just a horse”. I, for one, wish Totilas the best in the Olympic games. He certainly deserves all the praise and attention he gets.
Edward Gal did well by hm, but surely Totilas natural talent is the greater part of this excellence demonstrated here.