At the derby meeting in Berlin-Mariendorf you are one of the favorites again, even though you are 70 years old. Your youngest competitor, the Dutchman Marciano Hauber, is 17. Don’t you sometimes feel like the dinosaur among harness racers? And do you never think of quitting?
I haven’t looked at that yet. Of course I’m getting older. But when I get on the sulky, I feel like twenty. I’ve just been used to it all my life – everything is as it was before. Stop – one thing has changed. As a young man, many days before an important race I thought about it nonstop and played through all possible contingencies. I don’t do that anymore and instead decide spontaneously what to do in the race. I benefit from the experience. And as long as that works out well and I feel good physically and mentally, I will continue.
Their growing track record is like clockwork that ticks insistently. After almost 17,000 wins, isn’t it boring to be the first to cross the finish line?
No, absolutely not. I’ve always been very ambitious, and I need that inner tension that drives me. It is as important to me as the air we breathe. But a trotting driver has to be very careful with his own ambitions. Because he must not thoughtlessly transfer his personal competition to the horses and force them to perform to which they are not ready. The shot then backfires. Sure – I love the speed. But my horse must want it too. This is the only way to create an equal relationship, and that is the basis for success.
You have been German champion 29 times and for every title you won, you received a gold-leaf helmet that only you were allowed to wear in the race. That became your trademark – the fans refer to you as the gold helmet.
That of course honors me, especially since I am not the reigning champion, but the current ranking is led by Michael Nimczyk from Willich. But I like it when the audience just calls me Heinz. It sounds so familiar, and I always wanted to be close to the audience anyway.
Although your correct first name is actually Heinrich, which very few people know. In the heyday of trotting you were known like a sore thumb, especially in the Ruhr area, and you couldn’t go out on the streets without being spoken to. But nobody ever greeted you as Heinrich.
Right. My mother used to call me that too – although I inherited the name from my grandfather, who owned many horses. But it wasn’t all good. Once I wanted to pick up a letter from the post office addressed to Heinz Wewering. But the clerk at the counter never gave it away because I could only identify myself as Heinrich Wewering. It was immediately clear to me: the good man has probably never been on a trotting track!
What did Heinrich Wewering do with the 29 gold helmets and thousands of trophies? Have you rented a warehouse?
I didn’t need that. Because a lot of people are involved in a success, and I passed most of the trophies on to the members of the team – keepers, owners and breeders. Although, to be honest, it was not always easy for me – because when I hold a trophy in my hands, I just don’t want to give it up out of joy. That’s why the most important trophies are at home and on my daughter Marie’s stud. So you are always in sight.
This includes eight Derby trophies. You are subscribed to success in the most important trotting race in the Federal Republic of Germany. However, you will not think back fondly on your first participation in 1972 …
I competed with the stallion Dürer, and the long distance of 3200 meters at the time was tailor-made for him, because Dürer had tremendous stamina. I was only behind, but I attacked with a good half lap to go. Suddenly a driver lost control of his trotter. The horse got in my way and I flew in a high arc out of the sulky. It was a crazy race – all opponents moved far outwards so as not to roll over me. Only Hänschen Frömming – one of the world’s best drivers of all time and my great idol – acted like a rascal, pushed through and won.
In front of 30,000 spectators, weren’t you embarrassed to suddenly sit on your pants?
No – situations like this can happen in a crowd, and I was delighted that my horse and I were unharmed.
It was not always like that. Your body has received a few bruises over the decades.
Well, when I fell I broke my shoulder, a foot and a wrist. But when I extrapolate that to the 52,000 races I’ve participated in so far, that’s actually not much.
You once said that the low points in your career were particularly important to you.
I am firmly convinced of that. And I think this applies to every athlete who wants to be at the top – regardless of whether he is a professional footballer or a track and field athlete. Defeat is an opportunity to reflect on mistakes made and to learn from them. So you are not a disaster at all, but an indispensable lesson on the road to success. That’s how I won my last derby with the stallion Unikum. My tactics were wrong in the most important preparatory race – so I changed them and triumphed in the final.
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