Danish Olympic Stars Kick Off Opening Leg in Herning

We look ahead to the new season...

Denmark’s biggest Dressage stars are hoping to begin the FEI Dressage World Cup™ season with success on home ground as the 2024/2025 series gets under way this week in Herning.

The Danes won Team silver at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, and their top talents will be taking on their rivals from nations such as Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden in the first leg of the new Western European League season. Watch it live on FEI TV…

Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour, Nanna Skodborg Merrald, and Daniel Bachmann Andersen will be competing their Olympic partners Mount St John Freestyle, Blue Hors Zepter, and Vayron for the first time since the Freestyle Final at the Paris Olympics.

Laudrup-Dufour and her partner, Mount St. John Freestyle (owned by Laudrup-Dufour & Zinglersen ApS and Mount St John Equestrian LLP), took first place in the Grand Prix Special in Paris and secured a fifth-place finish in the Freestyle Final. The combination (pictured below in Paris) can write a new chapter in their short but already impressive international career with their FEI Dressage World Cup™ debut in Herning.

Skodborg Merrald and Blue Hors Zepter (owned by Blue Hors ApS) have already made their mark with a second-place finish in the FEI Dressage World Cup™ Final 2023, Individual silver at the FEI Dressage European Championships 2023 in Riesenbeck, and another second place with Blue Hors Don Olymbrio in the FEI Dressage World Cup™ Final in Riyadh (KSA) this year. In Herning, Skodborg Merrald will be looking to secure her first World Cup points with the 16-year-old Zepter on the road to the Final in Basel next year.

Bachmann Andersen and the mighty Vayron (owned by the athlete and Rudolf Spiekermann) have, besides Olympic Team silver, already won European Team bronze and will be making their World Cup debut in Herning. They'll be joined by fellow Danes Nadja Aaboe Sloth, Lone Bang Zindorff, and Anna Zibrandtsen.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Official FEI (@fei_global)

Fierce Competition

The Danish athletes will surely put up a fight on home turf in the Boxen Arena in Herning, but they’ll face fierce competition from across Europe.

Sweden’s Patrik Kittel, who clinched the 2024 Final in Riyadh with Touchdown and also won last year's opening leg in Herning, will be competing with Forever Young HRH (owned by the athlete and Gestüt Peterhof), with whom he finished second in this year’s World Cup qualifier in Neumünster. His compatriot Maria von Essen will also be on hand, bringing the 12-year-old Invoice (owned by Alexanders Hovslageri & Häst AB) to Herning.

Here’s Kittel and Touchdown on their way to glory in Herning last year…

Germany is sending a strong contingent of five combinations, led by the experienced Ingrid Klimke. The German 'Reitmeisterin' will be riding the mare First Class (owned by Gut Hülsen GmbH & Co.KG), who made her World Cup debut in Neumünster this year with an eighth-place finish.

One of last season's rising stars, Raphael Netz, will also be in Herning, competing Great Escape Camelot (owned by Theres Boss and Sonja Kristina Krall), with whom he finished fifth in the Final in Riyadh. Germany’s squad is rounded out by Maik Kohlschmidt, Bianca Nowag-Aulenbrock, and Carina Scholz.

The Netherlands will be represented by two seasoned combinations, both riding home-bred horses: Marlies van Baalen will saddle up Habibi DVB N.O.P (owned by Dressuurstal van Baalen B.V. and Titus de Vries), her mount for the FEI Dressage European Championships 2023 in Riesenbeck, with whom she also finished second in the World Cup qualifier in Mechelen last year. Thamar Zweistra, pictured below, will bring her top horse Hexagon’s Ich Weiss (owned by Stal Hexagon B.V.).

With the grey stallion she has already competed at the FEI Dressage World Championships 2022 in Herning and in no less than three FEI Dressage World Cup™ Finals: Leipzig, Omaha, and Riyadh. For Belgium, Alexa Fairchild will round out the start list in Herning with her own Lusitano Mala Skala’s Hermes.

38th season with Final in Basel

With this year marking the 38th season of the FEI Dressage World Cup™, will Denmark claim its first victory since Anne Grethe Jensen and Marzog in 1986? After what promises to be a strong start in Herning, we'll have to wait for the answer until the Final, taking place in the Swiss city of Basel in April 2025.

While this season's Final will be held in Switzerland for the first time in history, Switzerland has already had two victories in the FEI Dressage World Cup™: Christine Stückelberger and Gaugin de Lully took the titles in Essen in 1987 and 's-Hertogenbosch in 1988.

This season's Western European League consists of 11 qualifiers, with Herning as the opening leg. The second leg will be in late October/early November in Lyon (FRA), followed by Stuttgart (GER) and Madrid (ESP) in November. December will see legs in London (GBR) and Mechelen (BEL). The new year kicks off with Basel (SUI) in the second weekend of January, followed by Amsterdam (NED) two weeks later. February will feature action in Neumünster (GER) and Göteborg (SWE), and the WEL qualifiers will conclude in March in ’s-Hertogenbosch (NED).

The top nine combinations from the Western European League will qualify for the 2025 FEI Dressage World Cup™ Final, along with the reigning champion, Patrik Kittel. He will automatically qualify if he competes in at least two qualifiers this season.

The first qualifier of the 2024/2025 season kicks off in Herning on Friday morning, followed by the Grand Prix Freestyle to Music on Saturday, 19 October, starting at 1:30pm (CEST). Watch it live on FEI TV…