Richard Vogel and his ‘superstar’ horse have a chance of making show jumping history

Richard Vogel was 18 years old, honing his skills as a young rider in Germany, when Scott Brash made history by becoming the first rider to win the Rolex Grand Slam of Show Jumping.

Eleven years later, after back-to-back wins at the The Dutch Masters in March and in Aachen, Germany in May, Vogel and his powerful Westphalian horse, United Touch S, are one major win away from emulating the Briton and his mount Hello Sanctos.

Vogel’s place in history will be secured if victory is achieved at the CSIO Spruce Meadows ‘Masters’ in Calgary, Canada in September.

“We’re still far away from it, because so many things need to go right and need to line up, but we’re working on it,” the 29-year-old told The Athletic ahead of this week’s Jumping International de La Baule in France, where he will be competing in Sunday’s Grand Prix Ville De La Baule on Levi Noesar.

“We’re trying to make a good plan. I don’t need to explain how difficult it is.”

To complete the Rolex Grand Slam of Show Jumping, which began in 2013, a rider needs three straight wins at any three of the four majors: The Dutch Masters, the CHIO Aachen, the CSIO Spruce Meadows ‘Masters’ Tournament and the CHI Geneva.

Even though Vogel has won just three career majors — the first coming in Geneva in 2023 — he and United Touch S will be favorites at Spruce Meadows given their current form and will scoop a €1 million ($1.2 million) bonus should they achieve the Grand Slam. But Vogel knows both he and his horse will have to handle the pressure of the moment.

“It takes an absolute superstar of a horse and a rider that supports the horse in the best way he can,” he said on a video call while riding one of his horses in the forest near his base in Pfungstadt, a small town south of Frankfurt, after a training session.

“It really takes a village behind the horse and the athlete. There are so many more people involved, building a team behind the curtains very often, but all of those people need to work hand in hand and line everything up perfectly to make a success like this happen.”

With the World Championships taking place in Aachen just two weeks before Spruce Meadows, scheduling is key, especially because United Touch S is 14 years old. While many horses at this age are highly competitive, they are similar to elite athletes in their 30s and 40s: still capable of winning major events, but in need of more recovery compared to when they were younger.

“It is a little bit tight but, to be honest, I had an eye on it already before the Rolex Grand Prix in Aachen,” Vogel, currently ranked second in the show jumping world rankings, said. “That’s one of the reasons why, especially beginning of the year, we didn’t do a lot with United. Aachen was only his third show of the year which, for a horse at that level and for his age, is really not a lot.”

“We really tried to give him enough time off in the beginning of the year, so we can try to peak at the right locations,” he said. “In the summertime, when we need to step up our game a little bit, in terms of having two shows, back to back, more frequent and quite close to each other, then I think we will have a very motivated horse, because he’s not burned out.”

Vogel believed the experience of last year, when he won the European Championships soon after Aachen, boded well for their chances of winning a third-straight major.

“I don’t have much doubt, because last year in Aachen we went double clear the first two rounds, but then we had two rails in the jump-off, so that wasn’t our best performance, but then we became European champion just three weeks after,” he said. “He was almost peaking better after Aachen.”

With big wins has come attention, especially in Germany, where the media are following the pair’s every move whenever they compete. That suits Vogel just fine.

“I’m in general a person that likes to take some risks, in life not just in riding,” he said. “That’s probably in my personality. From my early childhood, I like to ride efficient and quick. And I like the part of winning. I enjoy the process to get there, then to get rewarded with a win. I really like it and enjoy it, and that’s almost something that makes you a bit addicted.”

The numbers are in Vogel’s favor. United Touch S is currently the third-ranked horse in the world, according to EquiRatings, a statistics firm which uses a data-driven metric to track a horse’s career consistency and competitive strength.

“An interesting stat on this pair is that they remain unbeaten when clear in a jump-off,” Charlotte Smet, a jumping analyst at EquiRatings, told The Athletic. “Nine clear rounds, nine wins.”

United’s 60 percent all-time win rate in events is second only to Greya (65 percent), the top horse of world No. 1 show jumper Kent Farrington. “Pair that with Richard, whose 37 percent rider win-rate is the second-best in the data behind only Farrington, and you have one of the most lethal clear-and-fast combinations in the sport.”

While Vogel is focusing on the double in the late summer, he is also looking ahead to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics and the chance to redeem himself after a disappointing outing in Paris in 2024, where the pair finished fifth in the team event and 55th in the individual competition.

“It would be nice to give United another chance to do well and make a better plan for it, do the things we didn’t do so well two years ago in Paris,” Vogel said. “We need to see how fit he will be in two years. At the moment, we couldn’t wish for him performing any better, but two years can be a long time, especially at that age.

“But that would be an absolute goal.”