„An Honor to be invited“ – video

28. mars 2012
Fréttir

„An Honor to be invited“ - video

She is Germany‘s sports and breeding rider of 2010 and 2011, and she has already won multiple World Championship titles as well as European and German Championships. Just recently, she dominated the four-gait at WorldTölt in Odense, Denmark, and also took home the silver medal in tölt. She is currently the WorldRanking leader in four-gait and five-gait – all that at only 26 years of age. This is Frauke Schenzel from Kronshof near Hamburg, and she‘s coming to the „Þeir allra sterkustu“ Ístölt in Reykjavík this weekend.

Eiðfaxi talked to Frauke by phone this morning.

Eiðfaxi: Are you looking forward to competing in Iceland and what are your expectations?

Frauke: This is truly a great honor to be invited by Landssamband Hestamannafélaga to come to Iceland, the land of origin of our beautiful horses. It means a lot to me, and I‘m also very grateful to everyone who has helped with planning the trip and to those who trust me with their horses.

As far as the competition itself is concerned, I don‘t think it would be realistic to have any scores or rankings in mind before getting to know my actual competition horse. Of course, I‘m a competitor who would like to do well, but first of all I‘d be very happy to show a good and harmonious performance with my horse. I‘ll only have one-and-a-half days to get to know it, so we‘ll just do our best, I‘m sure, and then we‘ll take it from there.

Plus: there will be Iceland‘s best and most experienced riders with their own beautiful and very talented horses, and it will be quite a tough competition. Then again, I respect my Icelandic colleagues very much, and I‘m really looking forward to the competition. Hopefully, we‘ll be able to have more exchanges like this in the future, and we‘d love to welcome more Icelandic riders to compete in Germany as well.

I‘m sure we‘ll have a lot of fun on Saturday, and it‘s great to have all these events with Ístölt, Meistaradeild, riding through the city, photo exhibitions and so much more combined this week. There will be quite a lot of people from abroad as well, traveling to Reykjavík and around your beautiful country for the Icelandic Horse Festival.

Eiðfaxi: What horse will you be competing on?

Frauke: I have had two very generous offers – a stallion and a mare -, and I will be trying them tomorrow. So we will know more after I have had a chance to actually meet them and to ride them. It wouldn‘t be fair to the owners to comment anymore at this point, but one thing is clear: with such little time before the competition, the choice I will be able to make is only „for“ one horse and not „against“ the other.

It is a huge honor and privilege that people will loan me their horses and trust me with them, and this is by no means something I will take for granted. I fully appreciate it!

Eiðfaxi: Tell us a little more about yourself, please …

Frauke: Well, it‘s always difficult to talk about yourself but it‘s certainly true that the Icelandic horse plays a central role in my life. I was fortunate to grow up with my two brothers at Kronshof, the farm which my parents built 34 years ago. It‘s a family-run farm with approximately 230 Icelandic horses where everybody contributes with what they do best. We really have a great team with my parents, my brothers, my boyfriend and our staff, and there‘s always so much going on, it never gets boring.

Last week, we had an open house where around 700 people came to take a look „behind the scenes“, there will be an international breeding show at Kronshof on April 17-18 including a breeding seminar that I‘ll be doing together with Þórður Þorgeirsson, and in late May we‘ll have our WorldRanking sports competition where last year 557 horses were registered. That was quite a „full house“, and we‘re really looking forward to this year‘s tournament starting on May 25.

We‘ll be expecting our first out of this season‘s 22 foals starting next week, and that‘s always super-exciting to see how a new life begins. One thing that shouldn‘t be forgotten is that our breeding at Kronshof goes back to some of the best horses in Iceland, of course, and that origin is something we respect and value very much.

The first mare I was fortunate enough to win a World Championship title with was Næpa vom Kronshof who is after Fáni frá Hafsteinsstöðum, and her mother is a daughter of Orri frá Þúfu. Næpa‘s son Teigur vom Kronshof who is now Germany‘s highest-rated stallion ever after last year we rode to 8.84 points at the World Championships is a son of the great Otur frá Sauðárkróki. And so we know that Iceland deserves a lot of credit for the foundation of our breeding success today.

As far as the sport is concerned, I have basically grown up with it – watching my father Lothar race against Diddi at the 1999 World Championships in Germany was probably one of the defining moments where I felt that one day I would also love to be at the World Championships. And now with the big event coming up in Berlin in 2013, I‘m hoping, of course, that I‘ll be selected to be on the national team in my home country. That would be really special.

Eiðfaxi: Before we let you get on with packing your suitcase – anything in particular that you like about Iceland outside horses?

Frauke: I remember having a great time when I worked at Auðsholtshjáleiga for a while after graduating from high school. And one of the things I really fell in love with – next to all the great horses – was Skýr. There‘s nothing quite like it, so whenever I came back e.g. to visit Landsmót, I always loved having Skýr and taking some home, of course. So I‘ll be sure to jump into a supermarket this time as well!

Eiðfaxi: Have a safe trip and we‘re looking forward to seeing you in Iceland.