PHorses are significantly smarter than many people think. At least in certain moments. Two big stars of their kind, the beautiful and talented mares Dalera and Weihegold, recently demonstrated this again. Dalera told her rider at home in Aubenhausen that this tournament year is not over for her, despite the exhausting trip to the Olympic Games in Tokyo, where she and Jessica von Bredow-Werndl won two gold medals.
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And now they are masters of the European dressage championships in Hagen, have already won the title with the team and in the Grand Prix Special on Thursday, and if everything goes well, there will be another freestyle on this Saturday (1 p.m. on ARD) more, and all of this with an ease that is only possible if not only the rider but also the horse says yes to the task.
Weihegold not only gave Isabell Werth support in a moment of swaying. She practically carried her away in the Grand Prix Special, helped her to find herself again. So the two succeeded in a ride that Werth, the attacker, the doer, has probably not seen him often. Before the exam, which did not take place until late Thursday evening, the 52-year-old defending champion sat tiredly on a chair, tried to eat something and felt that this time she lacked the strength to build up the usual fighting spirit.
Bella Rose falls ill
In the team competition Jessica von Bredow-Werndl and Dalera had confirmed that they cannot be caught at the moment. And it had become clear that the fight for silver and bronze would be tough against the Danish Cathrine Dufour with Bohemian and the British Charlotte Dujardin with Gio. She had already come to terms with it: in the best case, third place – or even fourth. The day before she was in the bones when, shortly after the award ceremony for the teams, a call came in that her Olympic horse Bella Rose had colic.
Instead of celebrating the title with the others, she went to Rheinberg to see the chestnut mare, her heart horse, with which she has just won team gold and individual silver in Tokyo, with which she became world champion and European champion, with which she was seriously injured for three and a half years and that she wanted to say goodbye to sport next week at the CHIO in Aachen at the age of seventeen. Colic, the horror of every horse lover, was life-threatening, especially severe and painful. Bella Rose had to be brought to the clinic for an operation, Isabell Werth stayed with her half the night and went back the next morning. Bella Rose got up and was eating again, thank God.
Emotional support: Isabell Werth on Weihegold
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Image: EPA
When they rode into the arena that evening, Weihegold voluntarily gave her boss what she had asked her in many other competitions. The 16-year-old black mare, shiny and beautiful as ever, shone with her expressive movements, Werth was amazed. “It was as if she wanted to say: Come on, come on now.” This time it was Weihegold, known as a loyal, always hard-working soul, who gave the impulse to fight.
Encores for Bredow-Werndl
“It started on the way, and I’ve hidden everything,” said Isabell Werth. So her world came back to normal: Bella Rose recovered peacefully in her sick box in the clinic – and on the square in Hagen, Isabell Werth won the silver medal with Weihegold. “I’m very grateful to her for taking me with her,” she said. “It wasn’t the easiest day today.”
Jessica von Bredow-Werndl, on the other hand, was just beaming like lately. Tokyo was the most blatant challenge of the year, everything else was an encore. She let Dalera decide whether she wanted to add the European Championship to it. “I only rode out to Tokyo with her,” she said. “And when we ride out, she’ll start to buck at some point. Then I know she wants to go back to the tournament. ”This time it happened after a few days.
Victory despite a mistake
She herself wasn’t awake anytime soon. She went on vacation with her husband and child for a week. “I got sick and only slept and ate.” But the dark brown Dalera let everyone in Hagen know how much she likes to produce in the square. After all, the Lower Saxony authorities approved 3,900 spectators on the show grounds at the foot of the Teutoburg Forest – all of them vaccinated, recovered or tested. “We weren’t used to that many spectators,” said von Bredow-Werndl. But Dalera love it.
“When we rode in, it got even bigger,” she said. “I had to keep very still at a strong trot, otherwise I would have thrown her off balance. So much she was on fire. ”Despite a mistake in the flying canter changes, the two of them received 84.271 percentage points in the Hagen Special and were thus again well ahead of the rest of Europe. Isabell Werth was second to receive, albeit a very special one, 81,702. Producing yourself in front of an audience – Weihegold loves that too.
Its closing line, in which the passage, the majestic trot, and the piaffe, the lofty steps on the spot, are celebrated, is famous. An increase in this is the piaffe pirouette, as it will be seen in the freestyle this Saturday. The mare turns slowly so that she sparkles in the light like a black diamond and it seems as if Weihegold is celebrating itself.
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