Story by Chris Hector and photos by Roz Neave

Back in 2016, Sven and his son, Sönke made the long trip to Jerez de la Frontera, and that was the start of the medal-winning combination of Sönke and Cosmo…

We were sitting in the gardens of the Royal School in Jerez, after Sönke Rothenberger had won both the Grand Prix and the Special in very grand style. I reminded Sven that when I had interviewed him many years ago, he expressed the opinion that there was more to life than dressage, and when his kids asked him, what have you done? He didn’t want to confess that five minutes in a dressage ring at the Olympics was the high point… now with three children who are fiercely competitive, and with his son, Sönke pushing for a place in a Games team to Rio, had he failed to get the message across?

Sven and Weyden

“No, I didn’t fail, what happened with my family, is that we all live horses, sometimes we have a lot of discussions at the table, but we all have a dream and that keeps our family together. We all dream of good horses, and we talk and talk and talk of good horses. That is very nice for a family, that we have one passion together. My dream came true after I understood what family is, and how we can do that together.”

Sönke and Cosmo

You are still a young man, do you ride yourself?
“Sometimes at home, but I realized that my kids are doing much better in the ring and I don’t think you can have so many good horses – honestly, if we have good horses, we give them to the kids, because Gonnelien and I, we did everything we could do, and now the kids should do what they want to do and you cannot have so many good horses to have three kids riding and the parents also riding, this is not what we can afford. We have to breed, we have to buy foals and young horses, we have to train them. We did that with Devereux, we have done it now with Cosmo, that’s our dream to live with horses.”

It is a dream that has been wildly successful. The oldest child, Sanneke (born 1992) was second with Devereux in the Kür at Frankfurt last year, and she was long listed for the German team for the Europeans. Sönke (born 1994) last year won the under 25 Grand Prix at Rotterdam, while the youngest Semmieke (born 1999) has dominated the Pony ranks winning the German Pony and Junior championships.

Gonnelien and Barclay

The parents were pretty successful too! Gonnelien, daughter of Dutch mega-dealer, Adrie Gordijn, who established the Dutch Stallion Station, Breeding and Selling Barn – De Ijzeren Man, was a World Cup finalist and a medallist at Games, Euros and the WEG. Sven was a World Cup champion, and again a Games and Euros, medallist. The pair shared some wonderful horses: Andiamo, Ideaal, Bo, Weyden and Barclay. It was through the family connection that Sönke ended up with Cosmo:

“My grandfather bought Van Gogh when he was two, and then the vet at my grandfather’s place had a brood mare, and in return he got a breeding to Van Gogh, and that is Cosmo. It’s quite extraordinary. We saw him as a four-year-old for the first time, and we liked him, we really liked how loose he was in the trot and the canter, it looked so easy for him.”

Because Van Gogh is a lovely moving horse, even if he is more famous for jumping fences… Here he shows his canter with Marco Kutscher

“Yes, he is not the sort of horse the rider has to pull together, he is so loose through his body.”

Sven points out that Van Gogh was not only a jumper, “he had for more than eight years the highest mark in dressage in the stallion test. It was not a surprise that he could breed dressage horses, there are some really good dressage horses in Holland by Van Gogh. We knew there was something special in him, not only as a jumper, it is more the old Holstein breeding that comes a little bit through. This makes special horses, not normal horses, they have big movements, a lot of elasticity and they feel happy with their bodies, they use all their muscles – this is jumping, good jumping, that the horse is loose in itself, not stiff. They have strength to carry weight, but also big gaits, they have a really good canter, that’s what I really love.”

But with all that jumping breeding, was Sönke tempted to jump Cosmo?
“We did when he was a youngster and he actually jumps quite high and he likes it. I have been riding him since he was six. Before that my father rode him for one year. I took him over and we did Young Riders, now Grand Prix.”

Your father helps you with the training?
“My father helps me at home and then we have the German national coach, Monika Theodorescu, we try to arrange it once a week or every two weeks, that we train with her. My mother of course also helps me at home.”
“I think the horse has the capability to do everything, and we are now trying to find the right buttons to make it happen in the ring and on the spot. It is a lot of fun with this horse, every day is something new, it is a pleasure to have him.”

You are a student as well?
“I study international business in Frankfurt, and have one and a half years to go, then hopefully I have my bachelor degree. I don’t know yet what I want to do, I first of all want to have all the qualifications for business, then if it works out well with horses – horses are my passion, but I think I can still do that as a hobby, but if it ends up a job, that is also nice, I just like spending time with horses.”

After all his international success, Sven still gets nervous watching his children ride:
“Very, very nervous, I have to learn to be more relaxed, but with Cosmo I am really nervous because I like him so much, because I had him first to ride in my family. But I just rode him one year, then it was really Sönke’s project, and that makes me very proud. I didn’t have parents when I was young who could start with young horses. My parents helped me to buy good horses, but now we can say we built them up from zero to hero.”

This article first appeared in the April 2016 issue of THM.