Whom to Watch

Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum, Germany. Trailblazing Los Angeles native and Princeton dropout who became a German citizen after marrying a German rider. In 2004 she became the first female show jumper ranked number one in the world; also the first woman ever to win three World Cup Finals. She’s won most of her medals on her seventeen-year-old gelding, Shutterfly, an equine Michael Jordan who is wildly popular in Europe.

Chester Weber, United States. Based in Ocala, Florida, thirty-five-year-old Weber has won the U.S. national four-in-hand driving title for an unprecedented eight straight years. Two years ago he became the first American to win an individual medal at the World Driving Championships. A nice storybook touch: Jamaica, a gelding who has competed on all of Weber’s champion teams, started his driving career after getting rescued from a Belgian slaughterhouse.

Edward Gal, Netherlands. Gal (a Dutch rider) and Moorlands Totilas (a ten-year-old black stallion) are the hottest ticket in dressage — and honestly, how often have you heard that phrase? In May, some 6,000 fans jammed into an arena in Munich, Germany, designed to hold just 1,500 to see them strut their stuff. After banking about $55,000 in prize money for that freestyle event, Gal said, “Six minutes of riding to get so much money is amazing.”

Oliver Townend, Great Britain. Last April, as the ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano grounded flights across Europe, this twenty-seven-year-old Brit spent $3,000 on a taxi ride from Paris to Madrid so he could catch a flight to the United States and get to Lexington for an eventing competition. With a victory in the Rolex Kentucky, Townend would have bagged a third-consecutive four-star event win — a feat known as a Grand Slam, which only one athlete has ever accomplished — and $350,000 in prize money. Instead, he took a bad fall, got knocked unconscious, and cracked his collarbone. At the World Equestrian Games, he’ll return for a shot at redemption and a gold medal.