Stückelberger, Christine (1947—)

Swiss equestrian in dressage. Name variations: Christine Stueckelberger or Stuckelberger. Born in Wallisellen, a village north of Zurich, Switzerland, on May 22, 1947; father was a doctor; mother was the daughter of the president of Switzerland.

Awards in dressage:

On Merry Boy, European championships (1969, 1971, and 1973) and World championship (1972); on Granat, European championships (1975, 1977), Olympic gold medal in Montreal (1976), Olympic team silver in Montreal (1976), World championship (1978); on Gauguin de Lully, Olympic team silver in Los Angeles (1984), silver medal in World championship (1986), and Olympic individual bronze in Seoul (1988).

At age 11, Christine Stückelberger began formal training with Georg Wahl of the Berne Riding School who remained her coach throughout her career. Her doctor father had ridden occasionally while in the army; her mother, the daughter of the president of Switzerland, was a dog and horse lover and had taken riding lessons. Christine won her first major successes on Merry Boy: European championships in dressage in 1969, 1971, and 1973, and the World championship in 1972. She thought she had never had a better horse.

Meanwhile, she had purchased a four-year-old horse named Granat in southern Germany in 1969. Though he showed excellent movement, she soon discovered he was blind in the right eye; the former owner was so horrified that he refunded her money. Thus, Granat, a horse who was to become one of the greatest in equestrian history, was hers for free. Because of his handicap, Granat was difficult to train (sudden noises made him start), but this was countered by a gentle temperament. Stückelberger and Wahl used tricks to overcome his limitation. When he refused to turn on the forehand because of his inability to see in that direction, Wahl would stand on his right and speak to him, and when Granat turned he would give him a lump of sugar. Soon, whenever the horse heard Wahl, he would turn.

Mounted on Granat, Stückelberger took 15th place at the Munich Olympics in 1972 and 5th in the World championships at Copenhagen in 1974. In 1976, horse and rider arrived at the dressage training area in Bromont, site of the equestrian events for the Montreal summer Olympics. Wrote Guy Wathen: "A sizeable throng of spectators, mainly other riders of various teams, used to gather to watch the slim, elegant girl on the large and apparently unruly horse as they worked their way towards the dressage competitions of the Games. Sometimes the horse appeared totally to disregard the rider on his back, and sometimes it seemed nothing short of miraculous that she managed to stay there; at others he performed the movements of the Olympic test almost perfectly." In the individual Olympic competition, Stückelberger and Granat "produced a display of dressage that for sheer technical merit has seldom been bettered." She won the individual gold medal, 51 points ahead of silver medalist Harry Boldt and Woyceck, and 91 points ahead of bronze medalist Reiner Klimke and Mehmed. When Granat died in 1989, Stückelberger felt that she had lost a dear friend.

In 1975, she purchased Gauguin de Lully. Together, they won the Nashua World Cup Finals in Holland and Germany, the Olympic team silver medal in Los Angeles in 1984, the silver medal in the World championships in 1986, and the individual bronze medal at the Seoul Olympics in 1988. While she was training a young stallion in 1989, the horse bucked, and Stückelberger was thrown against a wall, breaking her back in two places. The two operations and convalescence that followed effectively cut short her career.