Jill of All Trades: Watch Ingrid Klimke Post a PB Score in the Grand Prix Freestyle at Wiesbaden

Why do the Germans keep kicking everyone’s butts all over the place, all of the time? Certainly a piece of the puzzle is that, as opposed to being mediocre in three disciplines, the best Germans have become specialists in each of eventing’s three phases. Exhibit A: Michael Jung’s sideline success as a show jumper, or — see video above — Ingrid Klimke’s proficiency in the straight dressage arena. Sure, she’s got dressage in her DNA (literally), but it’s still impressive.

The video, posted by Dressage Hub, shows Ingrid performing her winning Grand Prix CDI4* Freestyle at last weekend’s Wiesbaden aboard Franziskus, an 11-year-old Hanoverian stallion (Fidertanz 2 x Antara, by Alabaster) owned by Wilhelm Holkenbrink. Her score, an 80.68%, was the highest dressage score of her career and her first above 80%.

In addition to winning the Freestyle, the pair won the CDI4* Grand Prix as well on 74.3%. And then Ingrid went on to place 3rd in Wiesbaden’s Event Rider Masters CCI4*-S class with SAP Hale Bob OLD. Their dressage score? An ERM record-breaking 16.4. See EN’s Wiesbaden report here.

Ingrid is currently second in the Luhmühlen CCI4*-S with SAP Asha P, just a tenth of a point behind leaders Julia Krajewski with Samourai du Thot after the cross country phase. Read EN’s cross country report here; you can view the complete CCI4*-S leaderboard here.

Go eventing — and eventing with a little dressage on the side!