By the way...

Hippologist Thomas Müller

Thomas Müller can not only celebrate goals, but also Olympic gold.

(Bild: ASSOCIATED PRESS)

"Krone" author Harald Petermichl not only follows international soccer closely, he is also fully involved in the Olympics. This was also the case last Tuesday, when ARD reporter Stephanie Baczyk sent a memorable sentence into the ether. That and more in the latest column in the series "Oh, by the way..."

Opinions are divided as to whether professional soccer really has to be part of the Olympic Games, but without soccer, the Paris Games would be one beautiful story poorer: It was 6:11 p.m. on August 6 and the women's soccer semi-final between Germany and the USA was just underway when ARD reporter Stephanie Baczyk, audibly confused, sent the memorable sentence "Now I'm watching Thomas Müller with a horse" into the airwaves. And indeed, for a few seconds it was possible to marvel at the Bavarian veteran from TSV Pähl performing a kind of hippological partner exercise with a horse. For anyone not particularly familiar with horse tricks, it was initially rather difficult to make sense of it.

But the solution is obvious and this is where Walter Wadenspanner comes in. At first glance, he sounds like a gym instructor from a Donald Duck comic, but that's actually his name. He runs a horse breeding farm in Rottenburg an der Laaber in Lower Bavaria with a stallion station and an attached EU insemination station and has been working with Thomas Müller for over ten years, who in turn works together with his wife Lisa under the umbrella of "Kögl & Partner GmbH" (based in the canton of Lucerne), which runs the "Gut Wettlkam" dressage stable between Otterfing and Fraßhausen. Wadenspanner thinks highly of Thomas Müller, because he is "great to discuss bloodlines and breeding with".

Long story short: Thomas Müller is a horse breeder in his second profession and, together with Madeleine Winter-Schulze, owns the Westphalian gelding Checker 47, with whom Christian Kukuk won gold in the individual jumping competition in the Palace Park of Versailles. The confusing insertion during the semi-final was a simple glitch, because a snippet from a report about the hippologist Thomas Müller was accidentally broadcast. Anyway, Thomas M. complements Lisa M., herself a successful dressage rider, perfectly, because while she "always looks at the appearance" of horses, her husband's top priorities are "rideability and a strong hind leg". And because, according to Müller, "accompanying a young horse on its way to the top" is comparable to "accompanying a young footballer on his way to the top", the choice of this second professional mainstay is almost beguilingly logical.