New European showjumping champion Richard Vogel has paid tribute to the tremendous stallion United Touch S, who finished on a score of 0.01, having not touched a fence all week.
Having helped secure the team bronze for Germany on Friday at the Longines FEI European Showjumping Championships, the combination came out and jumped two more clear rounds in today’s final to keep the lead they had held since Thursday, ahead of silver medallists Scott Brash and Hello Folie, and Belgium’s Gilles Thomas and Ermitage Kalone third.
“I’m very, very delighted with United; how he was fighting until the very last jump,” Richard said. “He was with me everywhere, and I’m super relieved we could make that happen.”
Richard joked that his plan for the final was to “leave the poles up”. And that’s exactly what he did, the 13-year-old Untouched stallion using all his stride and scope to make nothing of Santiago Varela’s tracks today, as all week.
“I think everyone knows United Touch, probably before this week, but now everyone saw how amazing he is,” he said. But we’ve been a partnership for a couple of years, and when we started, his enormous stride and enormous scope was a big strength but also a kind of weakness.”
Richard explained that United had to learn how to use his body and adapt and adjust, to be able to not only leave strides out when needed, but also take on the shorter distances.
“But he changed amazingly and performed better than I could have wished for,” he said.
The pair did give the crowd cause to gasp, when they touched the last element of the triple combination, and the next narrow vertical on the penultimate line, but perhaps the great stallion was just teasing, as he sailed over the final Longines oxer with plenty of air to secure that coveted gold.
“The last line was not so easy for us,” Richard said, “I would say the right lead is not his strong side, we were coming home towards the in-gate, so he always gets a bit more stride, it was on the right lead and towards the end, when a lot of energy is out already.
“But he managed it perfectly. I’m just very relieved and super happy and proud of him.”
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