GHalf a year before the start of the Olympic Games in Paris, German equestrian sport has lost one of its best show jumpers. Gerrit Nieberg announced on Instagram: “Unfortunately I have to announce the sale of my top horse Ben.” The 26-year-old rider had achieved his greatest successes to date with the gelding. In 2022 they won the prestigious Aachen Grand Prix, a year later they won in Hamburg and were part of the German team at the European Championships. They were recently nominated for the 2024 perspective squad and were part of the extended circle of candidates for Paris.
“He took me to all the tournaments I always dreamed of and definitely shaped my career,” Nieberg wrote about Ben. The 13-year-old gelding most recently belonged to Gerrit Nieberg's father Lars Nieberg, team Olympic champion in 1996 and 2000, and the entrepreneur and former show jumper Hendrik Snoek, whose riding facility in Münsterland is where the Nieberg family lives.
As Gerrit Nieberg announced, the US Olympic rider Lucy Davis is now Ben's new rider. National trainer Otto Becker regrets the sale of the horse: “It is of course bitter when we lose horses abroad that have had such success in recent years,” he told the FAZ
For Gerrit Nieberg, the chances of taking part in the Olympics have become even smaller. According to the World Equestrian Federation FEI, the Austrian championship rider Max Kühner and the Swiss Josef Kunz are now registered as the owners of his second top horse Blues d'Aveline.
It is not uncommon for successful horses to change owners and nations around the turn of the year before the Olympic Games. By mid-January, the animals must be registered with the FEI for the nation for which they are to compete at the Olympics.
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