Newsletter N°3: The past is the present
Steve Guerdat is a world champion!
OK, so the newsletter isn’t focusing on current events this year and is instead taking a nostalgic and most enjoyable look back at the history of CHI Geneva, seeking out memorable moments to share with you and casting a light on the luminaries who have shaped the event’s history. But Steve Guerdat is a world champion!
It’s been nearly two weeks since the rider from Jura finally secured the only individual title missing from his long list of career honours. An Olympic champion at London 2012, three-time World Cup Final winner (in 2015, 2016 and 2019), a European champion in Milan in 2023 and three-time winner of the Rolex IJRC Top 10 Final, Guerdat scaled the heights on Sunday, 23 August 2026, in front of 45,000 cheering fans in Aachen, as he wrote a new chapter in the history of our sport.
His latest triumph has some now comparing him to Roger Federer, though many others afforded him legend status a long time ago. So, while the intention was not to focus on recent events in this newsletter, Guerdat changed all that, unwittingly blurring the lines between the present and the past. And the reason for that is because there is more to that little moment of history than just one glorious Sunday afternoon. Steve Guerdat would not be the iconic figure he is today without all the ups and downs he has experienced in both his career and life.
Geneva figures large in that career. The CHIG is his home, his turf. It was there, as a youngster, that he followed in the footsteps of his father Philippe, marvelled at the entertainment laid on by the best riders in the world, was given the chance to show what he could do, and that he won his maiden World Cup Grand Prix, back in 2004. For the last 30 years now, the most loyal – and, dare I say it, the oldest – among us have been following, with passion and admiration, a rider whom many predicted would go far. All those experts and awestruck spectators have been proved right by events in the years since, by a lot of hard work, by the people around him and, above all, by the horses that have partnered him. Steve Guerdat has become the greatest rider in history. And his story and that of the CHI Geneva are inextricably linked. Unquestionably one of the finest ambassadors of our sport, he is also a most loyal supporter of the event, one that he loves with a passion.
And if the past is part of the present, it is because many other wonderful stories have been written in Geneva. Take the inaugural World Cup in 1979, created by Swiss journalist Max E. Ammann and which has since produced some outstanding sporting moments, among them Rodrigo Pessoa’s three wins on the incredible Baloubet du Rouet. The Brazilian, and a certain John Whitaker, have been kind enough to look back on their golden years in the Swiss city, with the Briton playfully recounting his fondest memories of the shores of Lake Geneva with the legendary Milton.
Whitaker is an idol of Guerdat’s, and no doubt the young Steve was somewhere in the crowd back then, looking on in admiration as his hero did his thing, dreaming of doing the same one day.
The CHIG ups sticks for Les Vernets
The late 1970 spelled changes for the CHI Geneva, big changes. Following the handover from Colonel Pierre de Muralt to Robert Turrettini at the helm of a significantly rejuvenated committee in 1974, the event moved the following year to Les Vernets, just a few hundred metres from the Palais des Expositions, its former home.
On the plus side, this meant a massive grandstand with no pillars or columns, allowing uninterrupted views for spectators from all parts. On the minus side, the venue lacked the charm of the Palais, while tents were erected to provide stables and both the water feature and the hill were removed at the request of the FEI.
The departure from the Palais was necessary, however. Its facilities were dilapidated, and the FEI was anxious for the CHIG to modernise. Then there was the fact it had downsized from ten to just six days and was becoming increasingly selective, even if the main event on the opening evening of the 1975 edition had no fewer than 112 entrants. Eric Wauters and Pomme d’Api marked Les Vernets’ debut in style, clearing 2.18m in the Puissance – a Swiss and CHIG record – before winning the Swiss Grand Prix the following day.
While the move to the new venue was a success, it involved a lot of hard work, as Yves G. Piaget, Turrettini’s right-hand man at the time and a future president of the CHIG, recalled: “Leaving the Palais for Les Vernets Ice Rink was a complex and delicate technical challenge, one overcome thanks to the help of the Ville de Genève. Just imagine – we had to lay the floor seven times in a row straight onto the ice.”
Jumping legends relive CHI Geneva glory years
If there is one thing you can be sure of seeing at the CHI Geneva, it is the world’s leading riders, with the roll of honour at this prestigious competition featuring some of the biggest names in jumping. In this the third newsletter devoted to the event’s centenary and, in particular, Geneva’s appearance on the World Cup circuit in 1979, two of the discipline’s all-time greats take a walk down memory lane: British rider John Whitaker and Brazilian counterpart Rodrigo Pessoa.
Whitaker is a living legend, a flagbearer for the cream of British equestrianism since breaking into the elite in the 1980s. A team and individual runner-up at the 1983 European Championships, he won Olympic team silver on Ryan’s Son in Los Angeles the following year, before becoming a double European champion in 1989 on board his faithful grey, Milton.
The Briton’s longevity at the highest level is nothing short of remarkable. Little wonder, then, that he should be regarded as a prominent figure in the history of the CHI Geneva, having won the World Cup Grand Prix at the last edition to be held at Les Vernets, in 1989, on board the unforgettable Milton. The duo also won back-to-back World Cup Finals, in Dortmund and Gothenburg in 1990 and 1991, and together the rider and his legendary snow-white mount captivated crowds wherever they went.
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