FEI World Pairs Driving Championship, Warka (POL), 29 Aug - 2 Sept 2007

Hungary’s Vilmos Lazar has won the FEI World Pair Driving Championship for the third time in his career. The company director of the Lazar Equestrian Park was totally surprised and did not expect to win at all, but the gods were on his side in Warka. Sebastian Warneck from Germany took the silver medal, Lazar’s compatriot Karoly Hodi went home with individual bronze.

The nations competition was won by Germany, followed by Hungary and the Netherlands.

It was an exciting competition on the last day of the Championship. Dr. Wolfgang Asendorf had designed a very demanding and tight obstacle driving course, in which Sweden’s Axel Olin was the only competitor out of 57 who managed to put down a double clear round. Asendorf was pleased with today’s results although he would have preferred to have five to eight clear rounds rather than one. But the tight time window did contribute to the success of the competition.

Vilmos Lazar, who won the individual gold medal in 1999 and 2001 and was member of the golden Hungarian team four times, did not expect that he would take the gold medal home: ‘After my dressage test I thought I had lost my chances to winning a medal. To my opinion, the judges gave me fewer points than I deserved. After the marathon, in which I came fifth, I didn’t expect anything anymore.’ Lazar was in fifth position before the obstacle driving competition and drove a fast round with only one knock-down. His close opponents all made mistakes and Lazar moved up to the first position.

Lazar thanks his win to his family, his brother and his mother and the fan club, which have supported him throughout the whole competition. It was the last competition for the Lazar-brothers’ top horse Mithos, who brought them many successes since 1997. Mithos, a 16-year old Lippizan mare, was also in Zoltan Lazar’s team when he won the gold medal at the 2004 World four-in-hand Driving Championship.

Vilmos Lazar drove the 2006 season with a horse team, but he switched back to driving a pair again this year. Hungary has put in a bid for the 2009 World Pair Driving Championship and if it is allocated to Hungary, Lazar will keep driving a pair. Otherwise he will consider to start looking for some good horses to put a team together again.

Sebastian Warneck was in the lead after dressage and marathon, but one cone and time faults made him drop to silver: ‘It was a very tough competition for every competitor, we all had to drive fast to make the time. Unfortunately I didn’t make it, but I am still very happy with my silver medal.’ Warneck shortly thought back to the World Championship 2005 when he was on silver before the cones and he lost his medal by making too many mistakes then.

Germany’s Birthday Boy Klaus Tebbe, who was in third position, dropped to the eighth place after he hit two cones.

Title defender Rainer Pointl from Austria withdrew before the start of the marathon. He was forced to use one of his elder horses in the marathon because his good horse had not passed the first veterinary inspection on Wednesday. Pointl felt it would not be fair to the horse, which has done so much for him, to use him in yesterday’s heavy marathon.

Organiser Jan Waga was a tired but satisfied man after the competition. He is already looking ahead and has plans to organise more high level equestrian events at Farma Sielanka. His goal is to promote the carriage driving sport in Poland and to encourage young people to enter the sport.