Riders Tour 2015

The DKB-Riders Tour 2015 was the fifteenth season of the Riders Tour , an international show jumping tournament series .

In 2015 the Riders Tour comprised six special stages at CSI 3 * and 4 * tournaments in Germany. The Riders Tour was organized by a company of the same name, whose managing director is Paul Schockemöhle .

The title sponsor of the series was Deutsche Kreditbank , and Solem Luxembourg was also the main sponsor.

Course of the tournament series

The tournaments of the 2015 Riders Tour season took place between April 22nd and November 8th. Its size corresponded to the season of the previous year.

The special tests were the grand prizes of the tournaments. In the German show jumping and dressage derby , the jumping derby was the Riders Tour rating test.

With the exception of the German Jumping Derby, the evaluation tests were each announced as a jumping competition with two different rounds . The penalty points were not taken over from the first round, so the announcement (apart from the starting order in the second round) largely corresponded to a jumping competition with a winning round. The best quarter of the starters in the first round qualified for the second round. If more than the best quarter were fault-free in the first round, they were all eligible to start in the second round of the test.

The season finale continued to be the final in Munich. This was a normal special stage. However, in order to be able to enter the overall ranking at the end of the season, the riders had to take part in the final. If this was not the case, they were not taken into account in the final overall ranking.

The points were awarded as follows:

space	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11	12	13	14th	15th
Points	20th	17th	15th	13	11	10	9	8th	7th	6th	5	4th	3	2	1

media

All Riders Tour tournaments were broadcast via an internet livestream. In addition, ZDF broadcast the German Jumping Derby and third programs from the special stages in Wiesbaden, Münster and Munich for an hour .

The exams

1st examination: Hagen aTW

The Grand Prix of the CSI 4 * tournament " Horses & Dreams " in Hagen am Teutoburger Wald marked the start of the Riders Tour 2015. The tournament was held from April 22nd to April 26th, 2015 and was thus one of the first in the "Green season" 2015 in Germany. It took place a week after the World Cup final .

In the Grand Prix, 46 participants started, of which 13 pairs made no mistakes. Flawless rides in the second round succeeded five riders with their horses. The fastest of these five was David Will, who with his gray stallion Colorit was almost a second faster than the runner-up Janne Friederike Meyer.

	equestrian	horse	1st round		2nd round		scoring points
	equestrian	horse	Penalty points	Time ( s )	Penalty points	Time ( s )	scoring points
1	Germany David Will	Colorit	0	-	0	52.87	20th
2	Germany Janne Friederike Meyer	Goja	0	-	0	53.68	17th
3	Australia Jamie Kermond	Quite Cassini	0	-	0	54.22	15th

(Places one to three out of a total of 46 participants)

2nd exam: Hamburg

Winner of the German Jumping Derby 2015: Christian Glienewinkel

The second stage of the Riders Tour season was again the German Jumping Derby as part of the German Jumping and Dressage Derby . This tournament, which was held in Hamburg , was held from May 14th to 17th, 2015.

In the run-up to the jumping derby, both the Irish walls and the exit from the Great Wall had been slightly modified after consultation with riders to make them more horse-friendly. In return, individual other obstacles were slightly increased in difficulty in order to keep the requirements of the examination unchanged. That this was successful was shown during the test when 15 of 31 starters André Plath and Cosmic Blue achieved the first four-fault result and they took the lead. Four rides later, Christian Glienewinkel managed the first clear round of the test with his gelding Professional Aircare .

As the 25th starter couple, Carsten-Otto Nagel and Lex Lugar went into the jumping derby course. The 2010 winning couple had no mistakes on obstacles, but Lex Lugar took several steps backwards on the Great Wall, resulting in a score of four penalty points. It was even more unfortunate on the Wall for the winning couple in 2012 and 2014: For Calle Cool , Nisse Lüneburg's 18-year-old horse , the derby was planned as the last course of his career. However, this farewell round ended on the wall, Calle Cool could not be convinced to leave the wall on the regular route. In front of the home crowd, Janne Friederike Meyer impressed with her eight-year-old mare Anna in the derby course and finished with just four penalty points (fourth place in the end). As the penultimate starter, André Thieme and Quonschbob came second with a fast time and four penalty points.

Since there was no further ride without fault points, no jump-off was necessary, the victory went to Christian Glienewinkel. For Glienewinkel, who does not live full-time from equestrian sports, training or horse trade and is regularly successful in power jumping with Professional Aircare , this was probably the greatest success of his sporting career.

	equestrian	horse	1st round		Sting		scoring points
	equestrian	horse	Penalty points	Time ( s )	Penalty points	Time ( s )	scoring points
1	Germany Christian Glienewinkel	Professional Aircare	0	176.88			20th
2	Germany André Thieme	Quonschbob	4th	162.60			17th
3	Germany André Plath	Cosmic Blue	4th	163.24			15th

(Places one to three out of a total of 31 participants)

3rd exam: Wiesbaden

The International Whitsun Tournament traditionally takes place in Wiesbaden on the Whitsun weekend . The tournament, which took place from May 22 to May 25, 2015, was concluded with the Grand Prize of the State Capital Wiesbaden on Monday afternoon.

Since there was no Global Champions Tour tournament taking place at the same time as Wiesbaden in 2015 and no German team was at the start of the Nations Cup tournament in Rome, the Whitsun tournament had a high-class starting field. In the first round of the Grand Prix, eight starter pairs made no mistakes. In addition to these, Ludger Beerbaum and Zinedine entered the second round with one time penalty and the three riders with the fastest four penalty points.

The first two participants of the second round immediately benefited from the rule that the penalty points are not taken into the second round: Luciana Diniz was the first starter with Fit for Fun to make no mistakes; the same was achieved by Holger Wulschner, who reached the finish line more than half a second faster with Cavity and took the lead. He was able to hold this top position for a long time, but Christian Ahlmann took the lead from him. This competed in the Grand Prix with Taloubet Z , for Taloubet Z this was the first top position after an almost one year break from the tournament. Kamal Bahamdan took the victory from them, whose mare was almost half a second faster on the show jumping course without mistakes. With a fifth place in this test with Goja , Janne Friederike Meyer extended her lead in the overall Riders Tour ranking.

	equestrian	horse	1st round		2nd round		scoring points
	equestrian	horse	Penalty points	Time ( s )	Penalty points	Time ( s )	scoring points
1	Saudi Arabia Kamal Bahamdan	Noblesse des Tess	0	-	0	45.45	20th
2	Germany Christian Ahlmann	Taloubet Z	0	-	0	45.93	17th
3	Germany Holger Wulschner	Cavity	4th	-	0	47.07	15th

(Places one to three out of a total of 47 participants)

4th exam: Münster

After a three-month break, the Riders Tour season was continued in August with the winner's tournament in Münster . The date of the tournament in 2015 is from August 27th to August 30th, one week after the European Championships in Aachen .

On Sunday, August 30, 2015, from around 3 p.m., the Grand Prix was held. The endowment for the examination was again significantly increased from 100,000 euros to over 150,000 euros compared to the previous year. In the first round of this Riders Tour special stage, the allowed time in particular turned out to be a decisive criterion. A number of riders did not reach the finish line in the allowed time, so that in addition to the riders who did not make mistakes, participants with a time penalty also entered the second lap. In this second lap, Katrin Eckermann and Lugano were the first to start, taking the lead with a clean ride in 39.07 seconds. The following starters did not come close to this result, here in particular the turn to the penultimate obstacle turned out to be a cliff of mistakes that the riders approached too tightly and thus made mistakes. Only Wout-Jan van der Schans rode this turn more generously with Capetown , but maintained his brisk basic pace and crossed the finish line without penalty points in 38.67. Christian Ahlmann was again faster and without mistakes, but victory went to the last starter couple: Ludger Beerbaum and stallion Chaman had already won the main test on Saturday and also secured victory in the Grand Prix.

	equestrian	horse	1st round		2nd round		scoring points
	equestrian	horse	Penalty points	Time ( s )	Penalty points	Time ( s )	scoring points
1	Germany Ludger Beerbaum	Chaman	0	-	0	37.58	20th
2	Germany Christian Ahlmann	Colorit	0	-	0	38.06	17th
3	Netherlands Wout-Jan van der Schans	Capetown	0	-	0	38.67	15th

(Places one to three out of a total of 38 participants)

5th exam: Paderborn

The fifth stage of the Riders Tour was carried out as part of the Paderborn Challenge in Paderborn . The CSI 3 * tournament was held on the Paderborn Schützenplatz from September 10th to September 13th, 2015.

In Paderborn, eight horse-rider pairs managed to make no mistakes in the second round. Five riders achieved a time of less than 38 seconds, three of them from the Netherlands. But the victory went to the dominant rider of the tournament: Julien Épaillard, who had already won the championship on Saturday and the highest endowed test on Sunday morning, secured the top spot in the Grand Prix with Quatrin de la Roque in a time of 35.58 seconds .

	equestrian	horse	1st round		2nd round		scoring points
	equestrian	horse	Penalty points	Time ( s )	Penalty points	Time ( s )	scoring points
1	France Julien Épaillard	Quatrin de la Roque	0	-	0	35.58	20th
2	Netherlands Leopold van Asten	Zidane	0	-	0	37.09	17th
3	Germany Eva Bitter	Perigueux	0	-	0	37.48	15th

(Places one to three out of a total of 46 participants)

6. Exam: Munich

The final stage of the Riders Tour was the Munich Indoors Grand Prix . This CSI 3 * tournament, which takes place in Munich's Olympiahalle , took place in 2015 from November 5th to November 8th. The grand prize was endowed with around 80,000 euros.

In the first round of the Grand Prix, only four pairs of participants remained without mistakes, Carsten-Otto Nagel crossed the finish line with only one time penalty. Due to the announcement, David Will, who with Mic Mac du Tillard was the fastest rider in the first lap with four penalty points, had to start first in the second lap. With a quick ride without mistakes he was able to put the following riders under pressure. No subsequent rider was able to get to the finish line faster without making mistakes. Will repeated his victory from 2012, back then and in 2015 he also secured third place in the Riders Tour overall standings.

Christian Ahlmann missed his chance of winning the overall standings , who received four penalty points with Codex One in the second round. Second place in the Grand Prix came Michael Jung, who with Sportsmann - S celebrated one of his greatest successes as a show jumper shortly after the end of the "green season" for eventing riders.

	equestrian	horse	1st round		2nd round		scoring points
	equestrian	horse	Penalty points	Time ( s )	Penalty points	Time ( s )	scoring points
1	Germany David Will	Mic Mac du Tillard	4th	-	0	33.27	20th
2	Germany Michael Jung	Sportsman - S.	4th	-	0	38.32	17th
3	Germany Carsten-Otto Nagel	Holiday by Solitour	0	-	0	39.32	15th

(Places one to three out of a total of 49 participants)

Overall rating

Janne Friederike Meyer was the only rider to take part in all the special tests and ended up winning the season with a lead of ten points. Behind her, Christian Ahlmann, who took part in four of the six tests, came in second. He missed the chance to take overall victory in the last stage. Ludger Beerbaum, who was tied for third place with Ahlmann before the last stage, did not start in Munich (but was successful at the world cup tournament in Verona at the same time ), so that he fell out of the overall ranking.

The three best placed riders in the overall standings each received a BMW car in Munich .

	equestrian	Hagen	Hamburg	Wiesbaden	Muenster	Paderborn	Munich	scoring points
1	Germany Janne Friederike Meyer	17th	13	11	0	10	2	53
2	Germany Christian Ahlmann	-	0	17th	17th	-	9	43
3	Germany David Will	20th	0	0	-	-	20th	40
4th	France Julien Épaillard	-	-	-	-	20th	10	30th
5	Germany Carsten-Otto Nagel	-	11	-	0	3	15th	29
6th	United States Bliss Heers	-	-	6th	0	-	13	19th
6th	Germany Holger Wulschner	4th	-	15th	0	0	0	19th