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I’m being trained by Ulla for now 15years. Everything started when Ulla was still training the juniors of the Bavarian squad. Right from the first lecture on she took my horse, “Arachis” ,  home and our time together began.

“Arachis”, by the way, was the first Russian in Ulla’s stable. The most famous Russian though was soon to come: “Rusty”, so the two fellow countrymen weren’t feeling lonely anymore. Our long trainer-pupil-relationship turned into friendship over the years. Ulla is always there for me and gives me advice whenever I need her. I’m very happy and of course proud of this.

Here some little stories about our time spent together:

When I once again was spending one of my weekends in Bad Wörishofen Ulla was really excited. She took me to the barn to show me he new “star”. Curious as I was, I followed her. But when I came into the barn, all I could see was a big, lanky chestnut, who was going around in circles with his halter on. I was waiting curiously for her “star” to arrive, as he was to be expected. Ulla’s eyes were sparkling, I’ll never forget that. She was fidgeting and asked: “And?” First, I didn’t know what to say. She said: “may I introduce you? This is Rusty.” I think she could interpret my look, because she then said: “Alex, trust me, this is going to be my super-horse!” Oh… How right she was!!!

The two Russians, “Rusty” and “Arachis” developed perfectly. The beginning of the season came closer and with it the first competition, it was to be Landshut.

It was advertised as a pair-freestyle “in costume”. This should be the debut performance of “Rusty” and “Arachis” as “Phantom of the Opera”.

No sooner said than done, Ulla as the Phantom and me as Christin. It was great. We were practicing and practicing. Costumes were tailored and the music was mixed. Everything was perfect. After four weeks, the time had come. I can well remember that it was quite cold and that the horses and we were freezing. To that effect the temper of our Russians. The beginning of the freestyle was quite controlled. But when they finally got into it, they knocked our laboriously arranged choreography without further ado. Ulla lost her hat, as Rusty always had had an amazingly abnormal extended trot. Well, we arrived save and had great fun!

When I was a junior I had great exam nerves. I sadly could never take the acquired into the arena and show it off. Much as Ulla attempted, the bell rang and Alex ran for it again. Unfortunately without an exact evacuation plan.

Now it was up to Bastian. Ulla was in despair and sent me to her husband’s praxis: “You’ll get a button in your ear (she meant acupuncture), and then it’ll work!”

I got a continuous acupuncture in my earlap, which was supposed to calm me down. And it worked! Of course the fact that I had the opportunity to ride many competitions with my own, and also from time to time Ulla’s horses, had helped me to gain more calmness and overview, but maybe it was exactly this mixture of all factors, which made me become better.

In the end Ulla knew, that no matter how funny a horse was behaving: “Alex will get it through the test.”

I could continue for ages! But to cut a long story short: We are a fantastic team!

Twelve years ago I made myself independent with a training stable in Rügland, near Ansbach. We have 30 boxes, two of them are occupied by my own horses, “Douglas S” and “Calgary”, and an other two by the show-jumping horses of my partner, Matthias. The rest is occupied by horses, which are trained by me.

In July 2005 our daughter, Angelina, was born. She is, of course, already an enthusiastic rider. For her first birthday she got the pony stud “Lettenhofs Daydream”. But until she can start off properly, he is spending his time with Angela Hergeth’s daughter and introduces her to the  competitive sport.

Meanwhile my partner Matthias, who’s actually a die-hard show-jumper, became one of Ulla’s students, too. While I was pregnant we took the lorry, every Monday and went to Ulla’s. After a short time already she had made a successful dressage rider of him. With successes up to M level  in both, dressage and jumping, this work really paid off!

Now something about my own horses:

My great hope now is “Douglas S”, a golden-brown gelding, born in 2000, grown by Dr.Jackson in Baden Wüttemberg. Since the beginning of 2007 he now belongs to me and already achieved several seedings and also first places in DRPF; M and M dressage.

Together with the help of Ulla and Ernst Hoyers he’s supposed to become a fantastic horse!

My new blood is a grey hose gelding, of “Tannenhofs Carrabas”, born in 2003. “Calgary” is with us since 2006. He’s an exceptional enchanter, always decent and contained. Last season he brought some seedings in riding competitions back home.

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