Frank Rothenberger: The course designer must have his own personal signature; see what he has in store for the World Championships
While only one month remains until the start of the World Championship, Frank Rothenberger tells H&H how his professional career in course design began and why Aachen is his personal Olympics.
According to Frank, I originally wanted to become an architect, but from the age of 16 I started building courses.
At that time I was competing in show jumping and did not have obstacles at home for training, so I built obstacles for myself.
My grandfather was a carpenter and taught me woodworking, and my father also had a manufacturing company, so I bought machinery to build obstacles.
I had everything: water, ditch, hedge, wall, hill, gate — everything.
Later people started asking me to use my land, and I would build new courses for them.
I competed in three German youth championships — but in 1980 I took a three-year break from riding to start my own business making obstacles, because my workload had become too much.
I was 22 at the time.
I had a few good horses and competed alongside Otto Becker.
I intended to return to riding, but I realized I was more successful in design.
The company is called isiTrade; a name taken from my daughter Isabel — Isi.
She runs the company along with my son, who does 3D design.
Isabel is also an FEI level-three course-designer and helps me in Aachen.
I support them, but now they are running the business themselves.
So far I have served as technical delegate and assistant course-designer at six Olympic Games.
For London 2012 I was selected alongside Bob Ellis as designer and I also wrote a 100-page concept paper.
Bob simply told the team what he had planned and that was enough to get him the job!
I did the same for Rio 2016, but they hired Guilherme Jorge, my former assistant and a Brazilian.
But every year I have my own Olympics in Aachen — and in some years, like 2026, there are two major shows with CSI5* and a championship.
Aachen’s huge grass arena holds 40,000 spectators — and that creates special challenges for the designer (Image credit: Alamy) The 2006 grand prix at the World Equestrian Games in Aachen was probably the best course I have built to date.
In the final round we had 25 horses and faults were made at every obstacle: plank, wall, bush oxer, narrow gate — I like courses like that.
One of the most spectacular rounds I have ever seen on one of my courses was Scott Brash’s win with Hello Sanctos in the 2015 Rolex grand prix.
A course-designer must have his own “signature”.
It is just like artists; they have their own special style.
Think of Picasso and Rubens — Picasso paints with straight lines and Rubens paints voluptuous women.
If you give Picasso a blank canvas, he will draw straight lines; he would never create anything like Rubens.
But at the same time, both can do very different things, and both are successful.
Twenty years ago, I could tell just by looking at a course who the course designer was; but now that is not so easy, because everything has become very uniform.
Variety is very important.
Today, obstacles may be beautiful, but everything is reduced to pole and plank.
We should not make horses tired and bored; they need new stimuli.
I like to see bush oxers, a Liverpool double, water jumps, and narrow gates.
Horses come from nature, from hunting, and they must be brave; but pole and plank do not require bravery.
Likewise, riders must also be able to react in the moment.
Perhaps I am old-fashioned, but I believe that if you create variety, interrupt the rhythm, speed, and breathing, and ask the horses to collect, you challenge the partnership more.
“For me, the issue is not forcing a mistake, but breaking the rhythm” I opposed the suggestion to remove the open water.
I said: “This is completely natural, it is only 5cm deep, it is not dangerous, and it is also attractive for spectators.
” This obstacle tests the rider’s ability to collect the horse, bring him onto the hindquarters, and accelerate.
For me, the issue is not forcing a mistake, but breaking the rhythm.
But I would change the fault system, because how can you train a horse when landing on plasticine is counted as a fault?
He thinks he has done everything right.
So I say that if a hoof leaves a mark on plasticine, it should count the same as landing on dry ground.
In recent international competitions, we had completely new venues, and so all the obstacles were new designs.
However, Aachen is the oldest competition in Germany, so I will keep all the traditional Aachen jumps that everyone knows, such as Barbarossa Wall and Globe, and alongside them I will design a few new obstacles as well.
Otherwise, it is like designing a course in Hickstead but not having any of the beautiful, world-famous jumps that people want to see.
The famous Globe obstacle in Aachen (Image credit: Joerg Carstensen/Alamy) I love large grass arenas — like Dublin, Calgary, Falsterbo, and Aachen — because the more space you have, the more opportunity you have for creativity.
Aachen is challenging from a design perspective because the arena is very large — with a dressage arena in the middle for this year’s World Championships — and there are also 40,000 spectators there.
The course has to go into every corner, otherwise the fans complain that they did not see the riders.
The challenge is to cover the whole arena in the jump-off without turning it into a flat speed competition.
He said: “At the World Championships we may have more than 100 horses, and the level of the competition will also be different.
However, the goal is not to design a course only for the top 20 and put the weaker riders under pressure.
I had finalized my courses three months before the championship and I will not feel worried.
“You are under pressure, but I have designed many courses in my life — more than 100 Nations Cups, seven European Championships, six World Cup Finals.
I have good assistants beside me and we discuss everything together.
Course design is my hobby, and the other is sailing.
After Aachen, I have a booking for a catamaran in Sicily — and when that is over, I will design a two-star in Sicily.
Source: Horse & Hound