The German eventing star has had a stellar career: Individual and team gold at the London Olympics riding La Biosthetique Sam FBW; team gold and individual silver at the 2014 WEG riding Fischerrocana FST; individual gold at the 2010 WEG on Sam; and two European championship golds \u2013 in 2011 on Sam, and in 2013 on Halunke.<\/p>\n
In the run up to the WEG at Caen, Michael was interviewed by the German Website Pferdonline.ch<\/em><\/p>\n You are taking the nine-year-old former Bundeschampion FischerRocana FST to Caen. How do you feel about being the defending champion? <\/em><\/p>\n About defending my title\u2026 I have a good feeling, I have prepared well for this, I have practised and improved this and that over the past season, the horse is fit and I will try my best. However, you shouldn\u2019t put yourself under too much pressure and worry about defending that title, just because this is a championship. I rather focus on my riding and myself, just like at any other show.<\/p>\n How did you prepare for the WEG?<\/em><\/p>\n I have planned the season with the WEG in mind. I have tried to keep my horses happy and I have tried to find out what my horses need to focus on me and not be distracted: How long do I need to warm-up? Do I give them a ride to warm up or should I lunge them? What type of studs do I need for what terrain? I have tried to create a jigsaw puzzle that will hopefully come together well at Caen.<\/p>\n How do you work your horses now that there\u2019s only a short time left before the WEG starts? <\/em><\/p>\n I regularly do canter work uphill and repeat the fitness work every five to six days. It depends on the ground conditions of course and how my horses are responding.<\/p>\n Did you try to re-create a Normandy course?<\/em><\/p>\n No, but I have been to Normandy two years ago and know the course. It is a pretty standard course, there are fences and tracks that I can practise anywhere. But it is very undulating and it asks a lot of the horses, they have to be very fit.<\/p>\n Are you looking forward to the WEG?<\/em><\/p>\n Yes, definitely. It is a season highlight that I have worked for for the past two years. Then it goes on for two weeks and is all over again\u2026<\/p>\n Hopefully you will come home with a Gold medal?<\/em><\/p>\n The aim is to win a team medal. We will see about everything else. That is a new competition, a new game. But I would be happy with a good performance; it doesn\u2019t have to be a win.<\/p>\n And as history records, Michael came home with individual silver, and team gold\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The German eventing star has had a stellar career: Individual and team gold at the London Olympics riding La Biosthetique Sam FBW; team gold and individual silver at the 2014 WEG riding Fischerrocana FST; individual gold at the 2010 WEG on Sam; and two European championship golds \u2013 in 2011 on Sam, and in 2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18137,"parent":14165,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-18136","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18136"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18174,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18136\/revisions\/18174"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14165"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}