At the weekend, Jorma Kontio visited the Mariendorfer racetrack for the first time in a long time. A few hours later, the Finn, who lives in Sweden, was back on the plane heading home. In between there was a triumph that made a tremendous impression on the audience. Because the 69-year-old showed all his skills in the most important individual race of the Breeders Crown tournament, which is endowed with 385,000 euros.
Kontio came, saw and conquered. He only steered a single horse – but how! In the main race of the five-year-old trotters for 55,000 euros, the athlete competed with Hildalgo Heldia. A gelding who was only traded as an outsider. A misjudgment by the betting spectators, because they had reckoned without one of the world’s best drivers.
Kontio has celebrated well over 11,000 successes so far and is second in the European ranking behind the German Heinz Wewering (16,932 victories). Nobody will ever challenge the Finn for this position, and he impressively demonstrated why the athlete has this status.
Although Kontio had never steered his four-legged protégé Hidalgo Heldia before, he immediately took the lead in the race and set such a blistering pace that everyone suspected the horse would never be able to keep up. But far from it: The outsider surpassed himself and dealt with the opponents confidently. The whole thing in a new German record time – Kontio had undoubtedly performed a small miracle with the trotter.
At the award ceremony that followed, he remained modest and said: “It was the horse that did the job, not me.” An absolute understatement, because Jorma Kontio’s share in the success was huge.
At 69, the Finn wasn’t even the senior driver among the drivers. The Frenchman Jean-Pierre Dubois (82), who also belongs to the elite and in 1979 – so ages ago – had won the Prix d’Amérique, the most important trotting race in the world, shot the bird.
Dubois actually wanted to hang up the driving line a long time ago, especially since a Covid infection had made it difficult for him. But the Berlin meeting appealed to him so much that he made an exception again. A good decision that was promptly rewarded with a win with the mare Look of Love.