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Can We Talk About Michael Jung

Won the German National title 4*S at Luhmühlen on fischerChipmunk FRH!

Finished 5th on fischerWild Wave in the horses first 5*, as a 9 year old! Would have won the event without the frangible pin penalties.

I know we all know he is amazing, but I wanted to make a thread in case anyone has forgotten what a machine and absolute master this man is in the saddle.

Congrats to MJ. That is all :slight_smile:

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He is amazing. I was thinking about him yesterday, and remembering the books ‘Deep Work’ and ‘So Good They Can’t Ignore You’. This appears to be his One Job. I don’t know how his yard is run but I suspect he has an excellent support staff and that if, say, a tree falls on a fence, it is not him personally who has to deal with it.

As opposed to random upper level riders I’ve interacted with here in the US who are traveling multiple states away to give clinics, and taking calls from home about some crisis that has occurred that they would have dealt with had they been home.

Recently it was a tree down on a shared road, and it seems that none of the other residents knew what to do, because this rider typically would hop on the tractor and fix it. All of which takes their focus away from the horses and the riding.

I wonder, how good could some of the other riders be, if they were able to protect their time and focus?

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Yes I’m sure his situation helps his ability to focus on training and himself, but it is also the way he rides and trains the horse. He is soooo unbelievably soft and connected to the horse. He was talking about Chipmunk and how the horse is now just starting to listen to his subtle seat and hand aids in the showjumping. I really think he just has a total understanding of to train and ride.

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His family has a training background - I want to say ran a riding school? So he had good foundations. He does sell a few and he is a big training yard. A lot of people go to work under him and he has a lot of riders who get amazing opportunities on younger horses. Some of his WP have been out on his best horses at 2* for instance. What an amazing chance to sit on horses trained like that? What upper level rider in UK or US is that generous?
He also has some very good sjers - 1.60m level/Nations Cups. Doug Payne is probably closest to his model in US.

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He is interviewed, apparently extensively, for the new sport psychology book Ride Big by John Haime. The author was interviewed by Major League Eventing, and he was so enthusiastic about how gracious and delightful MJ was. He was glad to help with the book, and was happy to appear on the cover. The author is not originally from an equine sports background, and he could not get over how approachable the Big Names in Equestrian Sports were. He said he just sent MJ a Whatsapp conversation and was able to connect right to him. He laughed and said that to get to a pro football, baseball, or basketball player, he would have needed to go through several layers of agents and managers.

John Haime sounded so enthusiastic about our sport and learning about it, that I immediately bought the book. I’ve just started it, so I can’t give a personal review, but his interview was fantastic and made MJ sound even more impressive!

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I just started the book…I’ll report back when Im done!

Will be interested to hear reviews of the book.

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MJ is amazing no doubt about it, but think a shout should be giving to Julia Krajewski who produced Chipmunk to 4* as well as as countless other horse including Samurai Du Thot I think she will be a name we keep seeing more and more of

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Oh I completely agree, I was SO happy to Julia get the spot on the team!

But this is MJs thread…so let us bask in his glory :joy: :joy: :joy:

Totally joking BTW, well done Julia on all your success!

I really hate it when people say things like, “if he didn’t have that frangible penalty, he would have won.” Because in fact he did have the penalty. To wipe out that penalty for him in your imagination and call him the winner is not only unrooted in reality, it totally disrespects the achievements of the riders who finished ahead of him. Why not wipe out all the xc penalties for everyone and rewrite the leaderboard?

Moreover, to avoid activating the frangible device, MJ may have had to set up a bit better for that fence, which would have taken more time.

And even if MJ had gone double clear xc, which he did not, whose to say MS couldn’t have ridden a smidge faster in her stadium trip and still won? You can’t say, you don’t know.

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THANK YOU. Thank you so much for posting this. It drives me batty!!! Sure, if it wasn’t frangible maybe the horse wouldn’t have fallen. Or maybe it would have. Or maybe it would have been so off balance it would have had a 20 at the next element. Or maybe it would have whacked itself so hard it didn’t jog the next day. Or maybe it would have opened a hole in the space-time continuum that created a secret portal to the top of the podium at Tokyo.

The point is, we don’t know. But what we do know is that in this particular case, the horse hit the fence hard, the frangible deployed as it was intended, and penalties were correctly assigned.

None of that is to take away from what was a fabulous round from MJ and (yet another) 9 year old at the very top level of the sport. It’s an exciting horse for the future, and not many people would have got it through the rest of that combination clear after how the horse reacted to hitting the A element. They deserved their good finish this weekend - they just didn’t deserve the top spot this time around. No shame in that.

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LOL, excuse me for being excited about MJ and creating a thread to celebrate him. Please take your negativity to another thread and leave me to praise the best rider in the world, and god forbid use WHAT IFS in my doing so😂

It’s not that serious man.

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Again, it’s not that serious. But glad y’all couldn’t just leave one thread a place full of positive vibes.

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Interested in this book, but so wish equestrian books would get with the times and get on audible!

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Well I would like to say there were lots of positive vibes in the photos of the Jung family including wife and new baby, post show jumping, on the Luhmühlen Facebook page. Sweet that he won on Father’s Day and baby son was there.

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