Great event on a wonderful place with fantastic sport; the quality and the quantity of the competitors is still increasing – this is what the judges said. Over the last years, more and better riders with much better trained horses, much higher quality of horses compete at the ECAHO European Championships for Sports Arabians.

During four days thebest purebred Arabians from eight ECAHO member countries (AUT,BEL,GER,ITA, NED, POL, SUI,SWE) showed their ability and theirtalents.

Three International Championships on three different levels, from lower level “Lower Austrian Championships” to medium level “Austrian Championships” and finally up to very difficult –European Championships, gave the pure Arabian horses an unique chance in strong competition but very friendly atmosphere to spend a long weekend together and showed what they have learned over the years.

This event offered the chance to earn one of nine European Championships in different disciplines, bringing together the Classic Riders with Dressage and Classic Pleasure, Hunter Pleasure and the Western Riders with Reining, Trail, and Western Pleasure, and all special ECAHO Pleasure competitions as they are: Ladies Side Saddles classic and western, Traditional Arabian Riding (Native Costume).

Four special trophies were given to

• Longest trip to the championship was given to Kullantrop Stud Sweden.
• First entry to Family Lipp Germany,
• Youngest Rider Antonia Wimmer AUT just one day younger than Emma Dorn from Germany!!
• Oldest horse 24 years old PENTHOR NED, Penthor was participating from the beginning of the European Championships till now – and is still looking young. Old horses in the Arabian Sports are not rare, we saw several entries which were 20 years old and over.

The great winner of the whole European Championships was the German team winning five Gold , three Silver, and four Bronze medals. Two horses of Team Germany - one Classic and one Western -received five Gold medals.

The classic ridden Haifi el Sorrento and Susanne Hoyler won three times Gold in Classic Pleasure, Traditional Arabian Riding, and Classic All Around, plus a Bronze in Prix St Georg Dressage.

WAS Zahim´s Zarina under Sabrina Pauli was the star of last year and they accomplished two times Gold again in Western Trail and Western All Around.

The Silver medal in Dressage went to MS Madras and Susanne Giese Team Germany. Three Bronze medals were accomplished by Team Germany - in Dressage and Classic Pleasure by Mosri al Dahab under Katharina Dorn, plus in Western Pleasure Was Zahim`s Zarina and Sabrina Pauli.

It looks like that the Western riders are concentrated in middle of Europe: Germany, Austria Belgium, and Switzerland send their best horses.

Silver winner in Reining was Was Zahim`s Zarina under Sabrina Pauli while Bronze was given to MR Malagant with Tamara Scheck, Switzerland.

Again with us a famous Dutch horse Fandango with Paulette Zorn in a great Western Pleasure performance. This two won Gold plus they accomplished Silver in Western All Around.

A new horse caught the attention of the judges, MM Sandrine, formerly a successful show horse. At MM Sandrine’s – under Andre Reitermayr - first appearance at the European Championships the mare accomplished Silver in Western Pleasure. She is bred and owned by Mario Matt, Austria. This mare is not only beautiful but will make her way as a great performance horse, too.

The team Austria followed in the team ranking with two Gold (Reining Baikal´s Shangrila under Leona Dries, Ladies Side Saddle Valerie and Isabel Bartlechner) and six Silver medals (Classic Pleasure by Valerie and Isabell Bartlechner, Trail by GFH Sajala and Susanne Schuh, Western Pleasure by MM Sandrine and Andre Reitermayr, All Around Classic by Wizard and Sandra Wagner, Ladies Side Saddle Trocadero and Karin Lenhard). Finally, three Bronze medals were accomplished by Austrian riders (Ladies Side Saddle GFH Sajala and Susanne Schuh, Trail GFH Sanddhya and Andre Reitermayr, All Around Western Baikal´s Shangrila and Leona Dries).

The Gold medal in Dressage competition was given to Swedish competitor Elvison under Hannah Persson from Kullantrop Stud.

Eforos und Jagoda Kowalska came all the way from Poland and earned Silver Traditional Arabian Riding Silver plus Bronze All Around Classic.

The class “Type & Conformation” saw a lot of wonderful horses, a strong competition without question. The first place was given to Erogant and Monica Duyvenbode, Netherlands, second place was won by MM Sandrine and Andre Reitermayr, Austria, and the third place was given to another horse from Austria, MM Nevio and Rebecca Farrell.

Our sincerest thanks to all the wonderful sponsors, without their support this event would be not possible.

Save the date for 2019: 25.th -28.th July 2019.