Medalists cite partnerships with their mares as key to success
Text and photos by Jennifer O. Bryant
Several of the riders on the podium after today’s team dressage medal final have talked about their bonds with their mounts—who happen to be mares—as key to their success. Germany, which earned gold on a team total score of 235.790, boasted two great mares: Jessica von Bredow-Werndl’s Tokyo 2021 gold-medal partner, the Trakehner mare TSF Dalera BB (by Easy Game); and Isabell Werth’s new mount since January, Wendy, a 2014 Danish Warmblood mare by Sezuan 2.
“She’s always leaving her heart in there for me,” von Bredow-Werndl said of “Dalera” after their Grand Prix test on July 31. “I don’t need to push; I just need to ask. It’s never that I have to [say], ‘Come on.’ It’s like, ‘OK! OK! OK!’ This makes it so special, and I have never had this feeling with another horse before in my whole life…. It’s more than just a partnership with us. It’s on another level.”
“When I don’t make a mistake, she won’t make a mistake,” Werth said of Wendy after their Grand Prix Special test today. “She’s so fantastic—the last center line, the pirouettes—everything is really improving and improving. She is outstanding.” Werth said she had an instant feeling of connection with the mare: “When you see a horse, and you sit on a horse, and you feel that’s your horse, then it clicks and it’s really a perfect match for us. We both feel really confident, and that makes it so easy. She’s so uncomplicated.”
Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour, a member of the Danish silver-medal team on the 2009 Hanoverian mare Freestyle (by Fidermark), waxed similarly poetic about her newest partner. Laudrup-Dufour took over the ride from Britain’s Charlotte Dujardin last October.
Their GP Special test today felt like “just dancing,” Laudrup-Dufour said afterward.
Dancing onto the silver-medal podium along with Laudrup-Dufour were Nanna Skodborg Merrald on the 2008 Oldenburg gelding Zepter (by Blue Hors Zack) and Daniel Bachmann Andersen on the 2011 Westfalen stallion Vayron (by Vitalis). Team Denmark earned a total score of 235.669.
Team Great Britain won bronze on 232.492. The team makeup was a study in contrasts—from veteran Carl Hester on the 2010 KWPN stallion Fame (by Bordeaux 28), to current young top pair Charlotte Fry on the 2011 KWPN stallion Glamourdale (by Lord Leatherdale), to the newcomer who got thrust onto the team a week ago, Becky Moody on the 2014 KWPN gelding Jagerbomb (by Dante Weltino OLD). Remarkably, these Olympics are Moody’s and Jagerbomb’s first major international championships; and they have risen to the occasion in the wake of the suspension of British superstar Charlotte Dujardin after the revelation of a horse-whipping video.
Tomorrow, August 4, will bring the highly anticipated conclusion of the Paris 2024 dressage competition: the Grand Prix Freestyle individual medal final, featuring the top 18 combinations from the Grand Prix qualifying competition. It commences at 10:00 a.m. Paris time, so set your alarm clock for a ridiculously early hour, put a pot of coffee on, and fire up NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service (the Olympic streaming provider for the US) for live coverage.
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