Alwin Schockemöhle (born 29 May 1937) is a former Germanshow-jumper. He was a successful international show jumping equestrian in the 1960s and 1970s at individual and team events in Olympic Games and European Championships. He was one of four children, a girl[1] and three boys. His younger brother Paul was also a successful show-jumper. Werner Schockemöhle, his youngest brother, was a well-known horse breeder in Oldenburg.
Biography
Schockemöhle with Zukunft, puissance competition, Wilhelmshaven (West Germany), ca. 1965
Schockemöhle was involved in horses from an early age, and sold his grey mare Anaconda to the American equestrian Mary Mairs for DM100,000.[2] His success in horse-dealing allowed him to fund the debt-ridden family estate when he took it over, aged 20.[3]
Schockemöhle won his first Olympic gold medal in 1960 on the German show jumping team, followed in 1968 by a bronze medal. At the 1976 Summer Olympics, he won both gold in the individual and a silver medal with the German team which he was part of with his brother.[4] He has won both the European and German championships several times.
By his first wife, Gaby, who later married Hendrik Snoek, he had a daughter, Alexandra,[5] and two sons, Christoph, who lives in Singapore, and Frank, who is a manager in the German Bundesliga; and two daughters, Vanessa and Christina, by his second wife, Rita Schockemöhle. Rita also had three children by her previous husband, Gerhard Wiltfang. Alwin has been quoted as saying: "She has four children; I have five; altogether, there are seven".[6]
Eckhard F. Schröter: Das Glück dieser Erde. Leben and Karriere deutscher Springreiter.. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 1980, ISBN3-596-23019-5
