Sport: Deutschland iiber Jumps

Manhattan’s 66th National Horse Show grew most exciting when a U.S. Army jeep toted jumps and fences into the ring and pink-coated Honey Craven, ringmaster, blew a fanfare on his long, thin trumpet. The stable owners in evening clothes, the teen-age girls who had come to show off their saddle horses, the grooms along the ringside, now all waited tensely for the real stars: the jumpers. About to begin as the competition for the President of Mexico Trophy, toughest of the international jumping events.

The Mexican army team, which in the last eight years has won more jumping contests than anyone else, was not in this one: ex-President Miguel Alemán, who established the trophy, asked that no Mexicans take part, “in the interests of international good will.” The excitement, came from the Germans, who had not been in a U.S. show since before the war.

Star of the German team was Hans Guenther Winkler, a 28-year-old aspirin salesman from Warendorf, who was mounted on Halla, a brown, nine-year-old mare that he had picked up as “a worthless nag” 2½ years ago and trained into a sensational jumper. Peering through his spectacles, he gave her a remarkably relaxed ride, took her easily over the first five jumps. On the sixth and toughest jump—a 5-ft.-high and 5-ft.-wide “double oxer”—the mare’s hind hoofs, desperately straining upwards, did not quite clear the white bar and sent it sailing to the floor.

Winkler repeated the same fault with an aged chestnut gelding called Alpenjäger. With a total of eight faults, that still gave him the lowest score of the evening. The band struck up the German anthem, as it did night after night throughout the show. By last week, the Germans had won seven of the total 14 jumping events, Mexico and Spain three each, the U.S. one and the Canadians none.

The German victory was remarkable because World War II scattered or destroyed most German horses. But under Dr. Gustav Rau, 74, trainer of every German equestrian Olympic team since 1912, West Germany established a 30,000 member riding association. West German breeders and trainers worked patiently with whatever material they could find, achieved miracles with gentle handling. (Says Dr. Rau about Germany’s Mexican rivals: “They use wires and poles to make them lift their legs. The horses learn, jä, but through fear.”) Said Winner Winkler to an American newsman last week: “You have wonderful horses, but you do not organize, you do not train enough. We work harder than anybody.”