Story and Pix – Rebecca Ashton – on the right, and Cathrine on the left..
Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour has just finished a super Aachen. It couldn’t have been better preparation for the World Championships in her home country of Denmark next month. With five wins in five tests on two different horses, Bohemian, GP 4* and GP freestyle 4*, and Vamos Amigos, GP 5*, GP Special 5*, and Grand Prix freestyle 5*
With Bohemian…
The young dressage super star really is riding high. It’s been a fast progression for the Cathrine, who although successful in the junior levels, only came to prominence in the seniors at the Rio Olympics in 2016 where she came13th in the individual event at the age of 25. In six years, she’s trained two more horses to international Grand Prix success, claiming individual and team fourth at last year’s Tokyo Olympics on Bohemian and second in this year’s World Cup final on Vamos Amigos.
And Vamos….
I caught up with her at Aachen after her two Grand Prix wins.
I know this is a bit of a standard question, but how do you feel?
Yesterday I had to pinch myself because the one thing with Bohemian, I knew that he could really perform super, super well and it was nice to have him back in the ring this Wednesday and it was really the easiest Grand Prix I’ve ever had with him. It was chilled. I mean it was a bit conservative, but that was the plan from the beginning.
And yesterday with Vamos, coping with this atmosphere. He’s been quite hot down here but yesterday it seemed like he was not really reacting to the atmosphere. He was just taking it in. I mean riding Grand Prix on that horse, I could just piaffe for ages. It feels amazing. He just keeps on going without me really telling him. He just says, ‘Yep! How much do you want?’ So of course I feel extremely lucky. Then with the Danish team, it’s an honour to be in front with my team mates. So honestly I’m very happy.
Would you also say relieved? Because you obviously work really hard to have goals and your goals are obviously to be up there.
Yeah I work really hard, but it’s not only to get out there on top. I really like the training back at home and I love the process with the horses and I really love having Nathalie and Kyra at my yard training. I’m often more excited by that than the competitions. It is nice when we’re here, it’s super cool, but I love being back home. So I am relived because the boys feel really, really, good and they did a super job.
And Vamos has been, how shall we say, quite highly strung over the years?
Yeah. Really, really crazy hot and afraid of the other horses. But the last half a year I’ve brought him to quite some shows and he’s really grown from that I think. He felt amazing yesterday and he was so cool. Even when I finished my test, I could just drop the reins and he just took it in like a pro, no tip toeing or anything.
Is that just from taking him out a lot?
It’s also like trust training back at home and doing plenty of other things with them, and just being around them 24/7 and they trust me 100%. That’s the important thing.
What are some of the other things you do?
I hack them out, I take them to spa training, water treadmills, I work them from the ground, walk them across plastic and poles. All sort of different things. I play with them. I see every day how they are. They’re not just a number.
How many horses do you have at home now?
We have 22. Rasmine has three jumpers, and we have horses of the girls from the yard. There are approximately 17 dressage horses and I have one rider. Her name is Janni Dietz and she’s been with me around three years now. She’s an amazing rider really. She’s fantastic with the basics. She trained with Rune Willum my old trainer for years so we are sort of from the same system so we make a great team.
Cassidy and Cathrine at Aachen in 2017
What’s Cassidy up to now?
He’s teaching Janni some tricks. He’s in top shape. Every time we’re loading the horses he’s screaming and trotting around. It’s horrible leaving him back home because he’s so eager to join. It’s a pity for him because I’m not going to bring him to any big shows anymore, but I think that Janni could have a start. She did the Inter 2 the other day and Cassy was so fired up to do the test. He was so happy and seemed so relieved, ‘Finally, I can go up the centreline!’ He’s so sound and if you put him on the lunge he looks amazing, so fresh and so happy.
The Worlds are just around the corner. Which horse will you take? Bohemian or Vamos?
No not yet. Yesterday didn’t make it any easier!
I know I haven’t seen you ride in the flesh for a couple of years, but I feel like you’re riding, not differently, but I don’t know, more zen like or something.
Definitely. Yeah but I’m learning something every time Nathalie and Kyra come to the yard. Of course, with Cassidy, he was my first Grand Prix horse so I actually haven’t done that many Grand Prix tests. I’ve been in the senior sport for some years, but only with one horse competing maybe four competitions a year. Now I’m way more settled in and I’m sort of proving myself, by creating the third Grand Prix horse, so it gives me great confidence that I can really ride a nice Grand Prix test. That’s how it feels. It’s nice because it just feels super chilled now. In the warm up, I don’t have to press myself, or the horses, above any limit. We can just chill and do what we do back home. We’re not changing anything. We just play around.
That takes discipline too though. You still see riders under pressure and working harder. I don’t know if you don’t feel it or you’ve trained yourself out of that pressure?
I have a really good mental trainer Rasmus Bagger. I can’t remember what it was like without him because he’s trained me since I was 12 years old. I believe that training your brain is just as important as training the tricks, because all the riders here are super skilled, super nice and can do a super Grand Prix. But as you say, under pressure things do change. So it’s important that you can change as little as possible from what you do back home. I think that is the whole mental perspective of riding Grand Prix at this level.
It’s more an observation than a question, with the very good riders, especially you, you just don’t interfere when you ride. I feel a lot of riders don’t listen enough to the horse, they just keep telling the horse, but you listen to the horse more than you tell it what to do.
I think that’s been my identity for years. It’s refining all the time, but that’s also they way Nathalie and Kyra do it. That’s also how I can keep the horse really electric and still relaxed when I drop the rein. Ok, so maybe at home more you ask them, but still as little as possible because they know if I say go right, they go right, go right, go right and I can just relax and then say ok now left. Or they say, this is tough and you can say ok, do a bit less. It’s a cooperation. The two Grand Prix I did here, it almost felt telepathic with the horses. I could just think, and they were there. It was really, really cool because it’s not often that that happens. I’ve had it a lot with Cassidy because I’ve ridden him forever, but now it starts with these two boys as well. I can just think, and they can just feel my body from me doing almost nothing. If you see my spurs on Vamos, they are really like the smallest spurs you can find. It’s really just from body language.
What are they like personality wise?
They are really different. Bohemian, the best thing is if he gets the idea himself. Vamos is more like what? I tell him go right, he’s like ok, I go right. He’s more like Cassidy. He can be fired up by the atmosphere but not really spooky. Bohemian is more spooky but he doesn’t care about the atmosphere. Vamos is really talkative in the stall and Bohemian just wants to be left alone. He’s really friendly when you take him out, but the stall is definitely his space. So they are super different. I think Vamos is Bohemian’s biggest fan. He’s like, ‘Oh wow! Did you win today?!’ And Bobi is like, ‘Yes I did, and you can never do that.’ He’s so arrogant!
Do you have a ritual before you go out?
THAT’s Gerd Dörich!
No I don’t have, well I have to bring my lucky pet Gerd Dörich every time, but really it’s the normal routine. We don’t change anything. I want the atmosphere to be as easy and relaxed as possible and that’s the most important thing for me. I don’t need any more tension. I don’t need to get myself in gear. I am in gear. The boys are ready. It’s just to confirm what I know I can do.
How do you stop yourself from over doing things?
It was like with Bohemian the other day. Some of my team was like you could do a little bit more, you could go a little bit harder. But I’m like yeah but why? We won by four, five percent. Riders want to peak all the time but that’s impossible. Impossible for the riders, for the horses to peak maybe just three times a year. I think if you have just one or two perfect rides a year, you’re bloody skilled. I’m trying to tell myself they don’t need to peak here. This is just a stepping stone to the Worlds and if we can just come out among the top, then that’s enough for now.
To be fair I could have done even less and still have done a good job. I didn’t even push them. They were two very easy, nice Grand Prixs, just feeling what they will offer me, not me saying you have to. It was more like those two tests were what they offered me, and me saying thanks.
Your whole management….of yourself and your horses; the physical, the mental. The whole package and attention to detail, you don’t miss a thing.
That is everything. It’s really important, because all the riders can do a bloody good Grand Prix and all the riders are super skilled. But little things like having the boys’ physio Gitte Søby here. She’s been on my team for 10 years now and is amazing. She knows them so well, from the home work, from this is how their bodies change when they go to competition because then they get a little bit more tense, so working with my home vet, my two trainers, my groom. That’s really just an almost perfect team, because we all do know the horses from each angle, and from that we can put together the best training plan, the best competition plan. So yes management is everything, for sure it is.
You seem to try different things, like we talked about yesterday, keep it if it works and discard it if it doesn’t. But you’re always trying and trialing and comparing and changing and evolving. Where do you get your inspiration for that?
Kyra and Nathalie. They are the most curious trainers I’ve ever been with. Even Kyra, sorry Kyra, but she’s not that young anymore, but she’s so bloody curious. Every time she comes to my yard she has a new little strap or a new idea. We talk almost every day and she’ll say I tried this funny thing, ‘Can you test it on one back home?’ They are so skilled, from Nathalie’s experience in the sport, that’s just really inspiring and it keeps me motivated and they keep me busy all the time.
Like the first day we were here, we were supposed to just trot and do nothing, but then we went totally nerdy with something in the walk. Just a tiny little thing. Then we walked for about half an hour and it wasn’t asking really anything for the horse, just practicing the walk, being really nerdy. That’s what I just love about them. They’re never, ‘oh we have to practice anything’. Today we’re just walking the boys. Vamos may not even have a saddle on today. They know the tricks now so it’s just to keep them happy.
story continues after advertisement
Do you read much for your inspiration?
Not for technical reasons, but I do read a lot of books for ideas: from different business people around the world, different sports people, to get into their minds and see how they kept themselves motivated and moving towards new goals, after they achieved their goals. So it’s more about mental perspective, but never really when it comes to technique training. I leave that to Nathalie and Kyra.
We kind of know what a day is for you because of Instagram, but how is your day balanced?
Normally I get up at 06:00 and then in the stable from 06:30. I do a little paper work in the morning. You know, having your own business takes a bit of paper work as well. I’m not really that good at that, so that takes me some time every single day to have everything in order. Then I start riding from about 07:00/07:30 until lunch then take a little break before riding two or three more. So I finish riding around 15:00 then I start teaching and have a lot of lessons, with Annabella Pidgley from England and I have students at home so I would finish around 19:00. Then we go to the gym, work one to two hours, then go home, eat, sleep, repeat.
What do you do for your fitness? Mainly cardio?
No it’s both. Cardio and strength training and then coming up to a competition it’s more cardio so I don’t get an injury from heavy lifting. It’s a good mix.
What did you do to prepare for Tokyo?
We did heat training so I worked out in the gym with a hell of a lot of clothes on. It was fun to see the mechanism. They told us that it was going to take around seven to ten days before your body starts to get used to it. It was really true. At the beginning I was sweating like hell, soaking wet, then seven, eight days in, I wasn’t really sweating at all, even with all the clothes on. It was funny to see that and made me understand how the horses might feel, and how they might adjust to it.
I think that’s important as well with the fitness work, so you know how the hard physical work feels for the horse.
Super important. It gave me a different perspective. You can tell riders to remember to give your horse a break and they’re like yeah yeah. But once you start working out really, really hard yourself, you know no matter how hard your trainer whips and pushes you to do one more lift, if your muscles can’t lift one more, then you just can’t. Not even if someone threatens to kill you. You’re done. But then have a 30sec, one minute break, you can go again. I mean I knew that before, but working out really drove it home and really it made sense.
How do you stay motivated, getting out of bed on those cold, dark winter mornings…
I’ve actually been talking to my mental trainer about this because of course there are ups-and-downs with the horses. But I think it’s the passion that makes you motivated, because I’m not driven by my results. I’m driven by my everyday. I love my life and I love my training. With competitions, it’s something that can take my motivation away actually because I think it’s bloody tough being away form home.
That for me can be a bit of, hey, now you sign up, now you go for this competition. Of course sometimes it can be tough but I just love my job. It’s the paper work that can be a little bit tricky to motivate myself do! I have Rasmine back home and we’re in this together and we help each other if we have a tough period. And also Nathalie and Kyra and Rasmus. We have a few days off and renew our battery, and we’re back with more energy. Other than that I just really love to do what I do.
I know you have to be really serious and really focused with what you do, but you also have fun with it. You’re light. You don’t strangle it.
I was more strict like that before but I realised I was just killing myself. When I was younger I was thinking how the hell has Isabell (Werth) done this her whole life? That’s impossible. But now I know it’s probably because she loves competing, she’s playing along with it. Of course it’s strict and you have to train a lot, but it’s also about taking a chill pill and go-with-the-flow somehow, and knowing things happen for a reason. Of course you have to be super serious, super strict and super disciplined, but that’s like in my DNA. That part is a bit easier for me. I actually had to learn to relax and know if I go a day without training, it’s not going to kill a whole year of training. But I thought that when I was younger. So, yes, just going with your feeling.
A wonderfull interview. Every dressage rider should read it….