History 1997

It’s the 10th CSI from 20 to 23 March.
This multicultural anniversary tournament at Hallenstadion blasted all borders & records, & had better participating equestrians than ever before! They included all the Top Ten riders of the world, Olympic & World Champions, European Champion riders from 17 countries worldwide against the 15 best Swiss ones.
Rolf & Urs Theiler had created a social event around the horse and drove this event to a higher level every year! Their budget was now standing at 4,5 million Sfr and the spectator list continued increasing to 41,800. Only 30,000 tickets were available at the counters, the rest was sold in advance.

In this anniversary show there was a reunion with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police & its unique "Musical Ride", the Cheerleaders from Texas, the traditional ridermusic of Elgg & a local farmer Bruno Isliker with his riding dog, Falk. It was planned to celebrate the anniversary with a parade through downtown Zurich, but unfortunately this had to be cancelled one day before due to bad weather.

The Swiss riders were not very successful with the European Classic. Austrian Hugo Simon won the main challenge with his extraterrestrial horse ET & gained prize money of 70,000 Sfr as well as most successful equestrian of CSI Zurich. Olympic Team champion Lars Nieberg took 2nd place. The Grand Prix was won by Ludger Beerbaum with 100,000 Sfr, the only one to defeat the Swiss Equipe. Willi Melliger with Calvaro was 2nd, Paul Freimuller with Rubin 3rd and Lesley Mc Naught Mändli 4th.