2004 CDI Hagen

Hubertus Schmidt wins 2004 German Professional Dressage Riders Championship

Newcomer Uta Gräf Makes an Impression

July 5, 2004

It was a weekend of firsts for Uta Gräf and Duvalier. Riding her first Professional Dressage Riders Championships, her first Grand Prix Special in her life, and taking first place in the Grand Prix in the first qualifier of the Championship, Uta Gräf could do nothing else but smile this weekend in Hagen.

Gräf has the good fortune of having the ride on Duvalier, a dark bay Hanoverian gelding by Davignon x Bolero. Duvalier won the 1997 World Young Dressage Horse Championships in Verden under Holga Finken and has been trained to Grand Prix level by Finken.

For one year, Gräf has been training Duvalier and the combination clicks perfectly. Gräf has a beautiful seat with low, soft and quiet hands and her legs give the aids invisibility. It's a beautiful picture to see her ride such a talented horse as Duvalier.

In the first round of the Championships, Gräf won the Grand Prix with 67.41%. In the Special she placed second with 68.36% and in the finals she won the bronze medal. Though Gräf scores 1246 points on her own Duvalier, the other professionals scored even more with her horse.

When asked if Gräf was disappointed by the fact that she scored the lowest mark on Duvalier she said "no" right away. "No, I'm not disappointed. Rudolf and Hubertus have so much more experience than I do and I'm just very happy that my horse is the nicest one of them all," Gräf joked. During the award ceremony, Duvalier got a laurel for being the best scoring horse of the horse change finals.

Uta Gräf is located in Weisenheim near Frankfurt and trains with Ellen Bontje. Though she is an up and coming professional in Germany, she already training an interesting group of clients, amongst them the 2003 German FEI Pony Champion and 2003 European Pony Team gold medallist Patricia Höhn.

Text and photos copyrighted Astrid Appels/Eurodressage

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