We had almost started to believe that Justin Verboomen and Zonik Plus no longer knew how to lose. By dominating, breaking 80% and stacking up victories, the Belgian had turned the exceptional into routine. Except that a World Championship is no Sunday stroll. In Friday’s Grand Prix Special in Aachen, Charlotte Fry and Glamourdale reset the clock, Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour and Katharina Hemmer brought out the heavy artillery, and Verboomen finished fifth. Disappointing? For you, maybe. For him, far less so.

The royal road? More like a minefield

Let’s be honest: we had got a little carried away.

But Justin Verboomen had rather helped us along.

For more than a year, the Belgian and Zonik Plus have developed the annoying habit of making the extraordinary look like something that, for everyone else, would already count as a very good day at the office. European Grand Prix Special champion in 2025, winner in Aachen that same year, world number one, Verboomen had won again this season in Fontainebleau and Lier. In Fontainebleau, the pair had even raised their Grand Prix personal best to 83.500%, before taking the Freestyle at 91.855%. In Lier, their final outing before the Worlds, same again: victory in the Grand Prix, then 90.015% in the Freestyle.

So inevitably, when Aachen came around, some started talking about a royal road.

Wrong choice of words.

Because at the Worlds, everyone had brought out the Sunday best, the top horse and the sharpened knives firmly clenched between their teeth. Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour and Mount St John Freestyle had already sent the message by winning the Grand Prix with 82.376%.

A royal road? No.

A minefield.

And on this scorching Friday, Verboomen found a few of them.

“It was a bit my fault”

Fifth.

So there it is: Justin Verboomen and Zonik Plus off the podium in the Grand Prix Special. For a combination that had become so dominant that victory almost seemed to be its natural state, the placing could sting.

Except that the first person not to dramatise it is called Justin Verboomen.

Leaving the arena, the Belgian did not go looking for a magic excuse or someone else to blame. He spoke first about his horse, about the heat that weighed on the day and about the contrast between the warm-up, done indoors, and the entrance into the main arena.

« With heat like that, I expected it to be difficult, for me and for him. The warm-up went really well. He had a lot of energy, it was indoors, it was much cooler. So it is true that there is a bit of a backlash when you arrive in the big arena, with the emotion as well... for the horse! ! »

The heat, incidentally, was not some detail invented afterwards. Faced with the forecast temperatures, the FEI had brought forward the start of the Grand Prix Special to 8:30 a.m. and introduced a long break in the middle of the day after veterinary consultation.

But Verboomen did not hide behind the thermometer.

Quite the opposite.

« In itself, I am very happy because the mistakes that happened were a bit my fault. I have not practised those sequences enough with him, because at home I focus more on cool work and on the feelings. »

And that sentence probably says more about Justin Verboomen than his fifth place does.

Losing without questioning everything

Because that is the paradox.

In a sport where championships naturally push you to want to control every movement, every transition and every lost point behind the decimal, Verboomen continues to think first in terms of feeling with his horse.

And sometimes, the bill arrives.

Sequences not repeated enough. A few mistakes. A Zonik Plus who had to go from a cool, energetic warm-up to the furnace of the Aachen stadium. At this level, that is all it takes to go from the podium to fifth place.

Especially when the others have not exactly come sightseeing.

But what might look from the outside like a huge disappointment did not trigger an existential crisis in Verboomen.

« I am very happy with my horse. »

Simple. Almost disarming.

Then he added:

« I did not really have a medal objective anyway. The goal was really to try to do things well. Afterwards, the weather, the heat did not help, but there you go: the horse did his job and I am very happy. »

There are fifth places that look like disasters. This one feels more like one more piece of information filed away in the work notebook.

Fry had certainly not handed back her crown

While the Belgian was doing his self-assessment, Charlotte Fry was busy reminding everyone of a slightly inconvenient detail: the reigning world champion was her.

And Glamourdale clearly had no intention of becoming a secondary character in the story.

With 82.295%, the British rider retained the Grand Prix Special world title she had won four years earlier in Herning. A victory that also puts into perspective a more complicated 2025 season, which ended without an individual medal at the Europeans. In Aachen, the big black stallion turned up when it really mattered.

Behind her, Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour and Mount St John Freestyle took silver with 80.927%. Second again for the Dane, immense again, but once again denied the individual title that keeps slipping through her fingers.

And then came the little German earthquake.

ast to enter the arena, Katharina Hemmer delivered with the sensitive Denoix PCH a test of 80,866 % to snatch bronze. Enough to push Isabell Werth and Wendy de Fontaine into fourth place, in front of their own crowd.

At home, in front of the Aachen stands, you still had to have a certain taste for drama.

Hemmer had it.

And now, cue the music again

So what remains is that Belgian fifth place.

And that is probably what makes what comes next even more interesting.

Because, as with his compatriot Larissa Pauluis, Verboomen’s World Championships are not over. The programme still has the Freestyle to Music on Saturday 15 August, in the evening. The final individual battle of these championships.

And if there is one arena where Zonik Plus has already proved he can do serious, serious damage, it is that one. So no, the road to gold was not royal. It will not be any more so tomorrow.

But Justin Verboomen may just have reminded everyone why his story with Zonik Plus is so fascinating: even when the result says fifth, he still looks at his horse before he looks at the ranking.