Sandra Auffarth and Opgun Louvo. Photo by Jenni Autry.
Dressage just wrapped up for the CICO3* at CHIO Aachen in Germany, and Sandra Auffarth and Opgun Louvo are enjoying familiar territory in first place on a score of 33.8. They also led after dressage last year — and kept the hot streak going through show jumping — to ultimately finish in second place to winners Chris Burton and Holstein Park Leilani.
The 33.8 doesn’t quite best Sandra and Opgun Louvo’s impressive score of 31.8 from last year, but it shows the London Olympic individual bronze medalists are on point at the final event before the German selectors name their team for this summer’s World Equestrian Games.
Sandra’s presumed Normandy teammate Michael Jung and La Biosthetique Sam FBW are hot on her heels with a 36.2 in second place, which just bested their score of 36.4 from last year. Michael also appears on the German long list with fischerRocana FST, who earned a reprieve from running at Aachen after finishing in second place at Luhmühlen CCI4* last month.
Clark Montgomery and Loughan Glen, the sole North American combination contesting the event, are in a very comfortable position in third place on 36.8. Clark is familiar with this event after competing last year with Universe on the first U.S. Nations Cup team to ever go to Aachen, and he can put a lot of pressure on Sandra and Michael during this afternoon’s show jumping, as less than a rail separates the top three.
Aachen was far from a dressage show last year when torrential rains soaked the cross-country course, making time penalties an influential factor. Just Burto managed to make the optimum time last year, with ultimate gave him the win. But the forecast currently shows sunny skies for tomorrow, so it should be a very different scenario than last year. It’s going to be a very exciting 24 hours as we cheer on Clark and Glen.
Show jumping starts at 11:45 a.m. EST, so be sure to check back later this afternoon to see how the next phase shakes up the leaderboard. You can follow along with the live stream here courtesy of Clip My Horse TV. Click here to see the live scores, and be sure to check out the course preview here.
Aachen Links: [Website] [Schedule] [Live Scores] [Live Stream] [Course Preview]
