Stories from the Series: Katharina Rhomberg

Longines EEF Series Newsroom

Report: Eleanore Kelly
Images: Yadel Mohler Photograpy

The Longines EEF Series has been used by a number of riders in the lead up to the Paris Olympics and Austrian athlete Katharina Rhomberg been an active competitor for the last few years, including with her Olympic horse Colestus Cambridge. Eleanore Kelly caught up with her at the incredible equestrian venue in Versailles.

It’s the day before Katharina’s first ever Olympic appearance and she is understandably very excited to be here. “It is like a big, big dream which came true finally. When I was a small kid, I wanted to once ride in Aachen and once at the Olympics and the bigger goal of the Olympics has actually come first.”

Paris is a momentous occasion not just for Katharina but also Team Austria who have not qualified a Jumping team for the Olympics in Jumping since 1992. The 32 year old was on the team in 2023 who helped achieve this feat at the European Championships in Milan. They went one better than qualifying when they took the bronze medal too.

With a family steeped in horses – her brother Christian is also an international showjumper – horses are in her DNA. Her first memories of riding were as a toddler being led on a pony by her mother. Later she was jumping ponies and recalls her first pony as more challenging than most, throwing in refusals and bucking her off on a regular basis.

Having older siblings drove her to succeed in the sport, “I was going to all the shows with them before I could ride and I wanted to do that, go be as good as them. That gave me some motivation. I knew I wanted to be a showjumper.”  She admits her journey at the beginning was not so easy. “It didn’t start so well. As a Junior and Young Rider, I had some good results but also a lot of bad results. After school I was studying economics to have some background and something else to do. I tried to find a part time job to do alongside riding, but it just didn’t work because I was going to so many shows. I was then pretty lucky because I started getting lots of new horses so I could do it full time.”

Her philosophy on horsemanship revolves around keeping them healthy and happy and giving young horses time.  

“I think it’s very important to yield them up in the right way. All my young ones do very little shows, maybe two or three shows because I think it is a long time before they have all the muscles and everything has built up enough. They do a bit more at six and then at seven they are ready for bigger shows. I like not to do it too fast, and the most important thing is that the horses like what they do and that they still have fun and that we don’t over show them. I like to give them rest in between and not show every week. That keeps them healthy and if they are not healthy, they are not happy and won’t perform.”

Horse welfare has been in the news for the wrong reason in the lead up to Paris. Katharina clearly takes welfare very seriously and her horses are loved and nurtured.  She also agrees that we need to educate the public to better understand our sport. “It’s very important that people realise that our horses like to jump and they want to do a good job. When we jump our horses they get faster and keener. If I horse doesn’t want to jump, he will not perform.”

Last year Team Austria won the Longines EEF Nations Cup Final and will be defending their title again this year. Katharina is full of praise for the Series and says it has helped develop both her own skills and her horses in recent years.

“Four years ago, I did my first Nations Cup in the Longines EEF Series. For Austria it was very difficult to get to the other Nations Cups at bigger shows, so I was happy to go into the [Longines EEF] Series. It’s great having the team pressure, having the two rounds and for the horses it is different pressure riding for the team and a different atmosphere and that helped me a lot to improve my horses. I have here Colestus Cambridge and he jumped his first Longines EEF Nations Cup last year as an eight-year-old. It was in Bratislava which is a very big show with all the tribunes, and you get the experience of being at a very big show.”  

The combination showed their class this year with a double clear in Mannheim and just 1 time fault spoiling an otherwise perfect result in Budapest too. We wish her and the Austrian team the very best of luck this week and we look forward to seeing them at the Longines EEF Series Final in Warsaw on 8 September.