Quotes after the Prize of North-Rhine-Westphalia; “I will ride Firth of Lorne in the Grand Prix”

After a terrible fall for Katrin Eckermann in Thursday’s Nations Cup, she came back strong to win Friday’s Prize of North-Rhine-Westphalia on Carlson 46 – and this is what she had to say: “I forgot about yesterday this morning, and today I was the first rider in the jump-off and gave it my all and in the end I was first. I lunged Firth of Lorne this morning and he looked really good, so I don’t think about yesterday. I will jump him in the Grand Prix. I am sure that when I ride him on Sunday he will jump the water clear,” Katrin explained.

Third placed Daniel Deusser exlpained a bit about the difficulties in the class: “First of all I have to say that this is the second most important class of the whole week. It was a very, very good class where a lot of ‘first horses’ jumped. The line from the triple bar to the triple combination was a very difficult line – the riders towards the end of the class had a bit of an advantage and that is probably why we had a bit more clear rounds in the end of the class. The riders knew how to ride the line. It was really long between the two verticals and then very short to the oxer which was difficult for all horses to jump.”

Doda de Miranda ended second with his relatively new ride AD Nouvelle Europe Z, and got the question if he saw Katrin’s round before he went in: “She was so quick I couldn’t follow. I think she was faster than me from the start to the finish line. She is a very fast and good rider with a quick horse as well. It was very hard to beat her – I tried! But I’m very happy with the second place because I only rode this mare for three months. My federation is observing me as an option for the WEG so it was a very important result for me. I have another horse, my best horse Bogeno and he will jump Chantilly. Normally they want him, but it is good to have another option.”

Doda got the question if he is surprised that his success with Nouvelle has come so quickly: “It went quicker than I could have imagined with the mare. She was earlier ridden by a Swiss girl and they had a few very good results together. Faye rode her since she was six years old. Nouvelle is so nice and makes my life so easy, she is very careful and I love to ride this horse!”