HX Magazine 2024 | Edition 2

I always knew one day I would go back to Germany. Richi and I
kind of lived through everything together and it was our dream to
one day work together. David and Richi began V&W Equestrian,
and I joined them after three years or so. I never really expected
that all three of us could be on the top level in the sport at the
same time. I am the kind of rider that is happy at any level to be
honest. I enjoy riding young horses and developing them, but
also at international level I am getting so many opportunities. I
am really, really happy with how things have evolved.”
the business side of things. After working together for so many
years, and with Sophie also joining us later on, our visions for our
company and the sport, are now very much aligned.”
Sophie adds: “ The dynamic between us all is a big pro too. We
train together and bounce ideas of each other and so on. We
are a team, both in the stables and in competition. At shows
you don’t just want to win, you also want the others to do well,
because then the team does well. I'm always happy when at least
one of us ends up on the
podium or gets a top ranking.
For example, if Richi or David
are also riding the jump-off,
it is even more motivating to
try to go faster than the other
team members. There is very
healthy sense of competition
between all of us.”
Can you name some of the
people that have played an
important role in the past
years and have helped you
to where you are today?
Lennert spoke a lot about it and after my apprenticeship with
Hergen Forkert I was very lucky to take Emile Hendrix up on
his offer to come and work for Stal Hendrix. Their influence has
been instrumental to my career. Thanks to them I could really
step up my international sports career, before I rode mostly
national shows. I was very lucky to get the ride on Vittorio right
in the beginning. I jumped my first two-star, three-star, fourstar
and five-star Grand Prix with him. And later on also my first
Nations Cup, which we won with the German team. This horse
has been very special for me.
The past year I have also been very fortunate to have been
asked to join the Iron Dames team for the Global Champions
League. Because V&W is a trading stable, I was not sure if I could
be a regular part of the team, because the horses will get sold at
some point. Luckily the owner of the Iron Dames team, Deborah
Mayer, saved one of my top horses, Singclair for me. So, I had
the chance to keep riding him the whole season. Deborah is
also a very inspiring person for sure. The real gamechanger is
when I got to take over the reins of My Prince. Richi and David
had both competed successfully with him before and I needed a
second horse for the Globals next to Singclair. We spoke about
it and figured why would we go and search for a horse, while
we have a fantastic horse that we know inside out in our stable."
V&W Equestrian is a partnership between friends. Working
together and in the case of Sophie and Richard as a couple
sounds great. What are the pros and cons to that?
“I am convinced that there are much more pros than cons”, says
Richard. “We are three people that are very close to each other.
We are very different from each other actually, but that makes the
team more complete and almost makes us work better together.
A big pro is that we can trust each other 100%. I think that is
very important for a business relationship like this. Otherwise, for
sure, it wouldn't function. The only con I can think about is the
challenge of working with your partner, when you have different
opinions that this doesn't translate into the private relationship.
It's not that we fight all day, every day obviously, but we have to
learn to keep a good balance there.”
David: “I’ve never wanted to work on my own. I always knew if
I would start a business, I wanted to partner up with someone.
That it would be Richi wasn’t evident, it took some convincing
before he was in. I’d know him from a young age, and I believed
we would work well together. I think I recognized early on that
Richi was not just a very talented rider but also very keen on
"I am very lucky to have been
surrounded by good people
that had a good influence on
me all my life", Richard says.
Some of them well-known,
like Hugo Simon, but also
others that do not have a big name in the sport, like Stefan
Schäfer, he has been a very important person for me. When
I was 15, he was the person I owned my first horse together
with and since then we've had a very close relationship. We talk
on the phone mostly every day, and he has always had good
tips or good advice for me in certain stages in my life. Another
important person is my uncle, he's one of my very first trainers.
My mom taught me first but then my uncle took over. So, the way
I ride and my style of riding I mostly have my uncle to thank for.
He's had a huge influence on me in that way and also a person
that gives me inspiration.
Another very important group of people is the Herbert family;
they are the people I started my first job with when I was 17 and
they quickly became kind of my second family. We always own
multiple horses together and they are only 20 minutes from our
base in Pfungstadt, so we see each other almost every week."
"Foremost my family was very influential. My mum has always
been very supportive but the idea to go into horses was fueled
thanks to my mother’s twin-sister who worked with horses and
her son and my nephew Lennert Hauschild. As kids me and
Davids adds: "Yes, now you hear the readers thinking, poor
David but that is really not the case. It is a win-win situation.
In the end My Prince would've been sold anyway, so now we
get to enjoy him from a team perspective. With Sophie earning
the rider of the GCL season title and the Cannes Stars team,
powered by the Iron Dames, becoming the first all-female team
to win the GCL Championship, I say all's well that ends well."
"My parents were very influential in my career for sure. They
gave me the best example of working hard to get to where you
want to be. They gave me the best foundation I could ask for. In
my younger years, which were much earlier than the other, since
I am almost a decade older than Sophie and Richi, I worked for
Dietmar Gugler. By coincidence his stable is where Sophie has
her horses stabled now, because the stable in Marburg is not
big enough for all the horses. I also got to know Richi better
when I worked for Dietmar, because Richi's uncle rode horses
for a client there. Next to this, I am also fortunate to have the
support of the Saudi team of which I am the chef équipe. I've
really enjoyed being a part of their journey, the way they've
evolved as riders and horsemen. Together we've achieved quite
a few special milestones."
16 | The next generation
The next generation | 17