The things I love about Aachen Horse Show are those magic, unplanned, moments that just happen…

Story Christopher Hector, on the spot in Aachen, and Rebecca Ashton and Ros Neave took the photos…

It’s late Friday afternoon and the Aachen dressage warm-up arena  comes alive, not because the liver chestnut gelding, or his petite rider, are doing anything spectacular, indeed quite the reverse, the work is oh-so-simple, the rider quietly fusing with her horse, gently adding  final tiny touches.

Cathrine and Bohemian, quietly fusing

And a pat for Cassidy as he practises his halt at X in 2017

All around the world there are horse fans who video examples of abusive warm-ups and post them on Youtube for the world to see and condemn. I applaud them for doing this, but perhaps they could do something to balance the impression that dressage is some sort of blood sport…

A great innovation at Aachen, stewards at the Warm-Up arenas to answer spectator’s questions and explain what is going on… 

It might be nice if the photo crews who film bad warm-ups, could also record the good occasionally. A video of Cathrine Dufour warming in Bohemian, would show how a horse should be ridden, it might even demonstrate that you can become the best in the world – as Cathrine is now – using correct, tactful, classical – horse friendly –  methods.

The days are long gone when the Aachen authorities barred photographers from the warm-up for fear of the images that would emerge. Now it certainly is, nothing to see here. But within that dimension, there are higher, more rarified levels of  elegance and tact, the special sort of riding you see with Cathrine.

And down the end of the arena helping Cathrine work in Bohemian were two of the great rider trainers of modern times, Kyra Kyrklund and Princess Nathalie Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg.

Cathrine, like her other star team-mate Daniel Bachmann Andersen, is ignoring the idiot decision of the Danish Federation to toss out of the  team its leaders. The Danish Dressage team has been steadily improving under the calm, and knowledgeable, leadership of Kyra and Nathalie, and now has Gold firmly in sight at the World Championships on home ground in Herning…

Leaving aside Danish dressage politics, the question was obvious. Is dressage in a nice place now? And Nathalie thinks it is….

“Yes, I think it is, the turning point came in 2012.”

The turning point came with Carl and Charlotte?

Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro – Gold Medal winners at the last Euros at Herning in 2013

“Absolutely and Kristina Sprehe in 2012. 2012 for me, and I think everyone you ask, is the  turning point, the point of going back to the really nice classical riding.  You still have some shows where it is not so nice, but those are the rare moments, I think.”

Kristina Bröring-Sprehe and Desperados, part of ‘the turning point’ in dressage.’

But someone like Cathrine is taking it to another level…

“Yes, but it is still the nice riding. Someone like Cathrine is definitely taking it to a completely new level but it is still in the range of the nice riding”.

Nathalie is looking to Cathrine and Bohemian as they circle the warm-up arena on the buckle – “And this is a very good rôle model,  this is where it has to keep on going.  When you see her ride, you don’t think she’s got enough to do – and those are hot horses she is sitting on.”

“Really with Cathrine having so much success with her first horse, Cassidy, she was a real candidate for being a one horse wonder – and yet, she has been the reverse, not one, but three, and she has really only just started…”

Cathrine and Cassidy

“She’s so comfortable with the little chestnut but she goes and finds another one, this time a liver chestnut…”

and the new chestnut, Bohemian

A cuddle for a sensitive soul

“And he wasn’t easy, he is still not easy, but we have really found the door into him. The turning point came at the Europeans, there we really had to do a re-think of how to get his brain and his confidence, and the key was to completely take pressure off him. He is not a showman, some horses go in and say, wow, look at me!  He’s not that type of person, he does it because he knows it, but you cannot say, brrrrm, NOW we go for it. You have to be really polite and he has to offer it. ”

And the Vitalis son Vamos Amigo?

“He’s more of a showman, he was very shy in the beginning but at every show he is getting bigger, and bigger, and the chest is swelling, he’s a showman. Bohemian is a very sensitive soul. ”

There’s been a lot of talk about how rideable the Vivaldi, Vitalis offspring are, do you find that with Vamos…

“Yes, oh yes, but then again you have to look at their bodies, I mean Vamos, when you saw him as a young horse, you had to imagine a lot. He was a very very ugly duckling, and his conformation is not 100% perfect to be a Grand Prix horse but again, it depends on what they have between the ears,  and how rideable, and how they let themselves form for the rider and he just lets himself form, and he’s a hot cookie.”

It looks as if the Danes will have a simply wonderful team for the worlds in Herning…

“I really think Denmark has never been this strong.”

I loved the mare, Helline’s Danciera…

Helline’s Danciera and Carina Cassøe Krüth

“Also a really really nice horse, so I am crossing my fingers, hoping all horses stay sound, all riders stay sound.”

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But it really is weird, all the other countries are looking in the cupboard, and the cupboard is empty, and the Danes have got this cupboard full of horses…

“We’ve waited long enough, and we did our homework. Every time we had to go home and get better, get new horses and train better. And the riders had to go home and train better, see what they could do, and I think that is what dressage is all about, trying to screw a little bit on those small fine  little things. And the Danes just have  to go back, and do better than all the others. It’s being at the right time, at the right spot. Like somebody said yesterday, old horses get old, then you have to get the  young ones going.  The lines have to cross at the right moment, and that is exactly what’s happening with Denmark at the moment. Old horses going away, young horses coming up, and they meet exactly at the right time, and that’s Herning hopefully.”

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