![\"Header\"](\"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Header4.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nInterview \u00a0– Chris Hector<\/h3>\n
Dirk grew up in Gomadingen in the south of Germany only a few minutes away from the famous cross country track at Marbach CIC and not surprisingly, eventing became the passion for the young rider and by the time he was nineteen, Dirk was competing in the European Young Rider Championships. After a brief time working in a bank, Dirk turned to a full time career as an eventing rider, trainer, and as a dealer in eventing horses from his home in Sprockh\u00f6vel, where he lives with his partner, international dressage rider, Johanna von Fircks.<\/p>\n
Dirk and King Artus<\/em><\/p>\n Dirk won team gold at the London Games with King Artus, then team gold (and 6th<\/sup> individually) the next year at the Europeans on Hop and Skip. He rode in the last two World Equestrian Games and has his sights set on making it three in a row at Caen.<\/p>\n Chris Hector caught up with him at the DOKR training complex in Warendorf, where the eventing squad had assembled for pre-WEG training\u2026.<\/p>\n Horses were more exciting than banking \u2013 or banking was too scarey?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cNo no no, it was not scary,\u201d laughs Dirk, \u201chorses were definitely much more exciting. Horses were always a hobby that gave me a lot of joy and fun. In the time when I had to do my national service, I was allowed to go to Warendorf and spending ten months doing nothing but horses, then coming back to the Bank was very difficult for me. It didn\u2019t work at all. I was not happy at all in the office.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThen I decided to do an apprenticeship, in Germany we do three years and then an exam to become a professional rider. I was able to do it in Warendorf at the DOKR, and basically, that was it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI never felt sorry that I changed from being a bank clerk to a professional rider.\u201d<\/p>\n Always eventing?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cAlways eventing. Of course as a young boy I did a little bit of showjumping, only small and national, but basically, it was always eventing.<\/p>\n So you are not like Michael Jung, you don\u2019t do Grand Prix dressage in your spare time\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cNo no, I am not like Michael Jung, I do only eventing, I don\u2019t even go to normal shows for showjumping and definitely no dressage.\u201d (he\u2019s laughing)<\/p>\n Hop and Skip – not so good at dressage…<\/em><\/p>\n But your partner is a dressage rider\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cExactly. She helps me a lot with my dressage, especially with Hop and Skip, basically it is thanks to her help that we could improve Hop and Skip\u2019s dressage a lot, because he was not good in dressage – that\u2019s why I was able to get him.\u201d<\/p>\n You came into eventing at a good time, Germany won a gold medal at Seoul, but then eventing went down for a while before it came back very strong\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThe reason for that, I think, is the change of the competition. We don\u2019t have the long competition any more. Without roads and tracks and steeplechase, everything got more technical, more precise, higher level in dressage and in showjumping, and even in the cross country, it\u2019s more technical. This makes it for Germany a little easier, because we are well-educated as young people in dressage and showjumping, and this is the basic, and from there it is easier to build up something. And also, even though now I have an English horse, overall German horses, nowadays with a bit of full blood in them, they fit very well into this modern eventing world.\u201d<\/p>\n And you think this is a better world than the world of the old long format\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cDefinitely.\u201d<\/p>\n Better for the horses\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cBetter for horse, better for rider, better for owners, better for sponsors. There is no doubt that it is better now than it was. I started with roads and tracks and steeplechase \u2013 one thing I have to say, is for the rider it is useful to do roads and tracks and steeple and get a horse fit and ready for a three day event. It is very important to be a good horseman, to make a horse fit, to train for that, but I think it is a better world now, a better sport now, because you don\u2019t have so many lame horses. Look in the past and there were not too many top horses \u2013 championship horses \u2013 that did not have a gap in their career because they had a tendon and had to stop for a year. Nowadays it is possible to have a horse coming up through the grades to championship level, staying at championship level for many years, longer than dressage or showjumping, without having time off because of injury. That for me is the biggest sign that we\u2019ve done something right to the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd of course, everything is about money \u2013 for organizers, it costs much much more to do a proper steeplechase and no one watches \u2013 only the first rider gets watched and the rest are doing their circles on their own but it costs a huge amount of money for the organizer for basically nothing, so I think the changes are good for the sport. I really like it.\u201d<\/p>\n Dirk and Hop and Skip on course at the WEG in Caen…<\/em><\/p>\n So are you glad you didn\u2019t go to Badminton this year, that was a bit like the sport in the old days\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cNo I wouldn\u2019t say that. Badminton was of course tough this year, I wasn\u2019t there so I cannot judge it. If you look at the results on paper it\u2019s a funny result and I am sure we don\u2019t need results like this but what makes me wonder if it was that bad, is when I see the top names are not at the top but names that you think, what are they doing there, they have top placings. Of course you must be there to judge it, but these results are not the results we love in Germany. Our German organizers would definitely not like results like that.\u201d<\/p>\n Talking about fitness, are you a very scientific trainer, with heart rates and all, or do you do it by feel?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve done it scientifically, with the heart rate monitor, with blood analysis after the competition\u2026 I did that while I was at the DOKR centre in Warendorf, now I only do it by feel. It helped me a lot the scientific approach, to see a few things, but now I do it on what I feel, what I know about the horse. I always have my horses for a long time, I know them well\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Hills or flat?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cHills. I am based near Wuppertal, Bergisches Land, we have hills there. In the season I canter up the hills, and before the season I use a lot of canter on flat ground just to get the basic fitness, then during the competitions, I use the hills, and, touch wood, it works well so far.\u201d<\/p>\n How many horses do you have in work?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI have quite a few horses in, I think about 30, probably sometimes a little bit more, sometimes less. Many young horses, four, five, six year old horses. Basically I earn my money selling horses and producing horses. Sometimes there are big changes, sometimes nothing is changing for a month, it goes in waves.\u201d<\/p>\n Is it hard for you to keep the really good horses now that the rest of the world is coming to Germany to buy eventers?<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cDefinitely. I always keep the ones that are not so easy. I don\u2019t want to say they are bad horses, but the easy good ones are gone straight away, everybody wants them, the bit tricky, but not less quality ones, they stay a little bit longer.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n