Isabell Werth not only holds the record for the number of horses she has taken to the top of international competition, but she is also setting records for the number of horses she retires while they are at the top and then go on to a happy retirement!

Emilio at Mannheim Photo Credit Lafranz

Over the past couple of days, Isabell and Emilio have dominated the dressage at Mannheim winning the Grand Prix and the Kür, which hasn’t prevented Isabell announcing that the gelding will be retired at the end of the year at the age of seventeen. And remember she retired her wonderful mare, Weihegold at the 2022 World Cup final after finishing third at that show!

Emilio is closely related to Isabell’s great mare, Bella Rose, also recently retired and who has now had a foal. Both Emilio and Bella Rose were both bred by the family Strunk, out of two three-quarter sisters Cedera II and Celine, both by the Anglo Arab, Cacir, out of mares by Frülingsball. Bella is by Belissimo, Emilio by Ehrenpreis.

But while Bella was a sensation from the first day Isabell sat on her, Emilio’s behaviour almost resulted in an untimely end.

“The story of this horse is that we got him when he was five because no one could ride him, there was no chance to sit on. He comes from the same breeders as Bella and we had him in our stable for a short time when he was three. He was in our stable at the time and I can’t remember anything special about him. Then he got injured and we sent him back.”

“Then when he was five, Matthias (Bouten) was working in the stable and he told me, they have big problems with Emilio and they don’t know what to do, he was really on the short way to heaven. They are normal breeders, farmers, and they said, it is too dangerous and no-one can ride him. So I said, okay, we try him but you, Matthias, have to ride him because I have no time and it is also too risky for me. They tried for a few weeks with a dummy rider on top, they tried everything, but as soon as he saw something coming up behind, he would go, very very fast, no chance to stay on. So then we started to cover one eye, the near side eye, and that was the key. Later we uncovered it, and we used driving horse blinkers. This helped him to get the confidence so he could be ridden.”

“Emilio he looks so big, and not so elegant but really his heart is very small. He stops breathing when something is unusual, he’s really scared in some situations. For example, he is really scared about the farrier even today – and since he has been in our stable, nothing special happened with the farrier. No-one in the stable knows that the farrier has arrived, but Emilio knows, I am sure he smells him. It is the same with the vet, anything unusual upsets him.”

How do you work with him to give him confidence?

“When Matthias left, I took him over. I think he was six or seven then. You could sit on, everything was fine, but I was really careful with the shows I went to. He was not experienced, he had only been to two or three shows, so I was really careful that he doesn’t become scared again, especially for example, the prize-giving, at the first prize-givings I said to my groom, please come in and stand beside him, and that gave him the confidence that nothing was going to happen.”

“I always started the prize-givings in trot first, that he is not escaping, that he is not remembering the bad situations. It worked really well and now he is so nice, he is so uncomplicated. It really worked, so it is completely possible to see the development of this horse from impossible to sit on, to a really top Grand Prix horse. That’s really amazing.”

“He is also very kind, in the stable when you come to him, he starts immediately to lick with the tongue. He’s very polite, but he will react to some situations, once you know him, you know when to expect it.”

Announcing the retirement of Emilio, Isabell proudly explained to Dressursport Deutschland: ‘I’m proud when I see my pensioners in the field at home, for the age of 20 upwards. There are always seven to eight former Grand Prix horses romping around on our pastures and most of them enjoy their retirement for many years to come. It’s a pleasure to watch them and it’s the best proof that top-class sport also means keeping horses healthy.”

Photo credit Lafranz