2021 Tokyo Olympic individual gold medalist Jessica von Bredow-Werndl recaptures her title
Text and photos by Jennifer O. Bryant
A day of beauty, outstanding performances, and celebration of the best of dressage and the best of France injected some badly needed light and hope into a sport that has been rocked by horse-abuse revelations and high anxiety about equestrian sports’ future in both the Olympic Games and the hearts of the public.
Withering heat and daily thunderstorms with drenching downpours that dogged the Grand Prix competition finally moved out, and even the morning’s gloomy cloud layer lifted for the start of today’s Grand Prix Freestyle, the individual dressage medal final at the 2024 Paris Games. The Grand Canal of Versailles sparkled and shimmered as the perfect backdrop the Olympic equestrian venue designers knew it would be.
Dancing in this magnificent setting were the top 18 dressage horses and riders from the Grand Prix, vying for the coveted individual medals. After the pressures of the team competition, with every rider feeling the strain of wanting to do well for their country, there was a palpable sense of relief and relaxation going in to the freestyle. The team competition was especially difficult here at Paris 2024 because the elimination of US rider Marcus Orlob for fresh blood on his mount, Jane, threw renewed focus on equine welfare and outraged some fans at the same time. For American dressage supporters, the loss of a team, combined with the fact that no US rider advanced to the GP Freestyle, quashed much of the excitement.
But even US fans might have been able to set those disappointments aside during the freestyle when they watched Germany’s Jessica von Bredow-Werndl reclaim her individual gold medal from Tokyo 2021 with her lilting French-themed freestyle aboard her longtime partner, the 17-year-old Trakehner mare TSF Dalera BB (by Easy Game). A smiling von Bredow-Werndl made it look effortless, and the judges rewarded the pair’s fluency and artistry with a score of 90.093%.
Even the Olympic champion herself said afterward that she had to find a renewed sense of lightness and love going into the freestyle, to help herself ride with joy instead of pressure.
“I woke up this morning,” von Bredow-Werndl said, “and I had a very good feeling that it’s all about trust now. She’s enough; I’m enough; we are enough. We can do it… Today I had the feeling that it’s all about love and joy and trust. We have proven so often that we can do it. It was not about trying to fix anything. It was just doing what we can do.”
The silver medalist, Germany’s Isabell Werth on the 2014 Danish Warmblood mare Wendy (by Sezuan 2), expressed a sense of awe in the competitors’ getting the opportunity to ride in a fabled setting that presumably will never happen again in their lifetimes. Werth, however, is a little less of a prima ballerina and a little more of a showman: If she decides to change careers, she could easily front a rock band with her swagger and her ability to rouse the crowd, egging them on to cheer with big arm gestures and lots of “#1” finger-pointing as she leaves the arena.
Werth must be a fan of pop tunes, because they feature prominently in her freestyles. Her Paris 2024 routine was no exception, and it served as a love letter to her mount: portions of Barry Manilow’s 1970s hit “Mandy” were rerecorded for Werth, subbing in “Wendy.” Werth’s fun yet sentimental freestyle earned a score of 89.614%.
Taking the bronze on 88.971% was Great Britain’s Charlotte Fry on Glamourdale, a 2011 KWPN stallion by Lord Leatherdale. When you have one of the most successful and popular freestyles in modern times, you don’t mess with it—the pair rode to the “Best of Britain” routine that caused a sensation (and won them the gold) in Herning 2022—but Fry did add a snippet of “Le Marseillaise” as a merci to the 2024 Olympics host nation.
At the post-competition press conference, the medalists seemed elated to have given dressage enthusiasts a reason for optimism—a day of world-class “fancy prancing” and other lighthearted asides (as the world now knows, Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart were on the scene yesterday; this morning, actor Ryan Gosling was in the audience for the GP Freestyle). But during the conference Werth cautioned the equestrian community that the world is watching.
“We had some really bad videos and clips,” she said. “We have to be really transparent, and…the most important thing is that we all—all—be really open-minded. We have the responsibility, if something [goes] wrong, we have to stop it immediately, not four years later,” she said, referencing the now-infamous video of British Olympic gold medalist Charlotte Dujardin whipping a horse, which was taken four years ago but only made public the week of Paris 2024 opening ceremonies. “This is a responsibility of all of us if we love the sport and we want to keep it going.”
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