BY AURORE FAVRE; SOPHIE LEBEUF
PHOTOGRAPHY: COLL. ALBAN POUDRET; FRANÇOIS-ACHILLE ROCHE/COLL. POUDRET;
CHI GENEVA; FEI/BENJAMIN CLARK; ELSA ROCHAIX; VST/CHI GENEVA
Okay, 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...
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