When the award ceremony for the Hesse Grand Prix takes place in the Frankfurt Festhalle on Sunday afternoon at around 5.50 p.m., there is a high probability that a rider from what is currently the most successful trio in German equestrian sport will be at the top. The show jumpers Richard Vogel and David Will run a trading and training stable for show jumpers at two locations in Hesse. Both work primarily at the Hofgut Dagobertshausen in Marburg. Sophie Hinners, Vogel’s partner, is responsible for training the horses at the Pfungstadt site. All three are currently riding from success to success.
Vogel, who was born in Viernheim, competed in the Festhalle for the first time in 2019 and won the World Cup in Stuttgart in November. Will, who grew up on Lake Chiemsee and has been in Frankfurt year after year, finished second at the 2021 European Championships with the German team. Just last weekend he won the World Cup in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia.
“Not that I can’t sleep”
The 25-year-old Sophie Hinners is now part of the starting field of the International Frankfurt Festival Hall Riding Tournament for the first time. When asked for a tip on who would win the Grand Prix, Carsten Rotermund, a member of the tournament management team, answered without hesitation: Sophie Hinners. She is really looking forward to her Festhalle premiere this Friday in the opening competition, she doesn’t worry about the high expectations, says the native of Lower Saxony: “There is a certain amount of tension before every competition, but it’s not like I can’t sleep .”
Despite her young age, Hinners can boast of great successes: in 2019 she came second at the German championships and in 2021 she won gold. In the same year she was part of the winning team at the Nations Cup in Hungary. She repeated this success in Morocco in 2022. In November she competed for the first time at the international tournament in Stuttgart and came second in jumping for the title “German Master”. The calm, elegance and harmony with which she rides her horses through the difficult courses is striking. Marcus Ehning is considered the Stylist among show jumpers and recently described Hinners as an “uncanny talent” – great praise from someone who is an Olympic, world and European champion.
Christmas gift ideas
:
The most beautiful sports books of the year
Image: Publishers
Sophie Hinners got into horseback riding through her horse-loving cousin. She completed her training as a groom in a renowned stable in Bremen. In 2019 she moved to the Netherlands, to the stables of former Olympic rider and horse dealer Emile Hendrix. There she met Vittorio, the horse with which she became German champion and had her first international successes.
The dark bay gelding was actually sold to Canada, but because the new owners didn’t get along with him, Vittorio returned to Europe. “He came back about the same week I started at Stable Hendrix,” Hinners recalls. “He has his own character and was a little difficult at first, but we found each other and luckily we’re staying together.”
Because Hendrix bought the gelding together with a friend of his family and made him available to Hinners, she was allowed to take the horse to Pfungstadt in 2021, which is not a matter of course. The mare Graphik, for example, had already been sold when Hinners finished second with her in Stuttgart. “We are a trading stable and it is part of the process that horses are sold,” says Hinners. Without big sponsors one is dependent on it. Even if it is sometimes sad to let horses go, it is nice to follow their development. “It’s also proof that you’ve done well if they continue to be successful.”
Hinners rides eight to nine horses every day during the week. On the weekends she presents them at tournaments. With Vittorio, the stallion Million Dollar, who is made available to her by the Holsteiner breeding association, and Churchill, who belongs to a Chinese family and with whom she competes in Frankfurt, she also has horses for larger tournaments such as World Cups and Nations Cups. Her goal for 2023 is to compete in more five-star tournaments. “The start in Stuttgart was a highlight. I would like to build on that.”
