August 17, 2026 
This week, Michael Jung, the newly minted World Champion in eventing, Rolex Grand Slam Winner, and setter (and breaker) of almost every record eventing sport has thought to offer, has created and broken one of his own.
With this individual gold in Aachen, Jung—who is also the reigning Olympic champion and first-ever three-time Olympic champion—managed to finish on his dressage score of 23.0 for an unprecedented fifth consecutive championship with fischerChipmunk FRH.
But the clincher? It’s not even the first time Jung has done it.
The German rider first achieved that distinction aboard his former Olympic mount, La Biosthetique-Sam FBW. Which essentially means that Michael Jung is now re-breaking records that only Michael Jung thought to break in the first place.
“I feel very lucky to have these amazing horses and [be] the rider for these horses,” Jung said after his win.
As a longtime watcher of Jung’s speed and efficiency on cross country, you’d be forgiven for thinking he has a “type.” Yet he’d be the first to tell you that, aside from their incredible talents in eventing, Chipmunk and Sam are two very different animals.
“La Biosthetique -Sam FBW was my horse in the beginning; I grew up with him,” explains Jung, who won silver with Sam in consecutive 6- and 7-year-old Young Horse World Championships in 2006 and 2007.
“He was a very powerful horse, not so easy in the dressage. He [didn’t have] much scope in the jumping, but he [was] always a super cross country machine.
“I had the feeling [Sam could] jump everything so easily: he [could] run every hill, and if it’s necessary, for half an hour, it doesn’t matter for him. He was super-fast on hard ground, deep ground; he was such a strong and sound horse,” Jung says of the Baden-Württemberg gelding who won consecutive individual Olympic gold medals in 2016 and 2012—as well as team silver and team gold the same years, respectively.
Sam passed away in retirement on Jung’s farm at the age of 26.
But if Sam was a dogged, cross-country all-terrain vehicle, fischerChipmunk FRH is the versatile people-pleaser. “He is such a super dressage horse, he has such a good balance, such a super temperament, he is every day [a joy] to ride,” Jung reflects.
“[Chipmunk has] such a rideability and comfort, and then in the cross country, he is powerful—he can run so fast.”
While many good cross-country horses are indeed fleet of foot, Jung says Chipmunk’s superpower is his ability to listen to his rider, even and especially in the heat of the moment. The Hanoverian gelding’s capacity even takes his longtime partner by surprise.
“The [ability] of the horse [to listen]—[when] they run so fast, and with the adrenaline, and everything—and then just to listen quickly, in a second, to the rider, that’s just amazing for me,” Jung explains, adding that he’s equally awed by Chipmunk’s ability to become a completely different horse in show jumping.
“[In the show jumping on Sunday] he jumped from the first fence [in] a completely different style of a jump [from cross country]. How the horses can do that, running completely flat-out in the cross country—full energy, forward, jumping so brave [over] all the cross-country jumps. And then, jumping so [carefully] and in a super style [in the] show jumping [round], which was a tough round, also, with the [tight time allowed].”
At 18 years old, Chipmunk’s Championship days, like La Biosthetique-Sam FBW’s before him, may now be behind him—not that he has anything left to prove. And while anyone with good sense should doubt that this is the last horse that Michael Jung will produce up to the championship level, it’s clear even with all his accolades and records (and re-broken records), that Jung doesn’t take his horses or their accomplishments for granted.
“Standing in the prize-givings [next to] these amazing horses, they make the job for the rider much, much easier,” Jung says. “I am so happy to have [had] them.”
