![\"IsabellDrSGigoloWW\"](\"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/IsabellDrSGigoloWW.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nIsabell and her first great mentor,\u00a0Dr Uwe Schulten-Baumer \u201cAt that time, maybe I didn\u2019t realize how great it was to start my career with such a horse like Gigolo,\u201d Isabell recalled recently of her competing the Hanoverian gelding that was nine years old at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. \u201cHe became the most successful horse in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Since then Isabell has experienced her share of highs, and lows…<\/p>\n \u201cGetting older and with more experience,\u201d Isabell, now 45 years old, told dressage-news.com, \u201csomething can happen to disturb your world. Step by step you get disappointments, have a lack of success\u2013nothing really bad.\u201d<\/p>\n The two worst things for Isabell were the death after a months long battle with colic in 1999 of Amaretto, a Westfalen gelding she was training and competing as a successor to Gigolo, and a decade later the suspension for six months for the finding of a forbidden substance in a horse.<\/p>\n Isabell counts it as a \u2018lucky situation\u2019 that when she was a kid riding on a farm Dr Schulten-Baumer had lost his rider and asked her to help out.<\/p>\n \u201cAt that time, I did not expect to go into the sport. Then, his children stopped riding. Step by step I went into it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAs a mentor, he was always behind me. He always held my hand in all situations.\u201d<\/p>\n He taught her that while it was important to ride it was also important to study. She learned the business in the 16 years of their partnership.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course it was not always easy,\u201d she said. \u201cThe Doctor was not an easy teacher, not an easy person. Today, I have full respect for his work. He was always serious with the horses and gave me great basics.\u201d<\/p>\n Then, after moving on to set up her own business she had another \u201clucky situation\u201d when Madeleine Winter-Schultze became an owner of her horses and a sponsor, as well as a friend in what Isabell describes as a \u201cvery, very close partnership.\u201d<\/p>\n The relationship with Madeleine, a long time sponsor also of Ludger Beerbaum, \u00a0was \u201cso much more free,\u201d and they trusted her to let her do the job of training and competing. If she said she believed in a horse, Madeleine\u2019s response was \u201cthen we will buy it.\u201d<\/p>\n Satchmo, El Santo, Warum Nicht, Der Stern and Don Johnson were among the lineup of horses that kept her going in \u201csome better, some worse moments.\u201d<\/p>\n Sadly one horse that looked like being the greatest Isabell had ever ridden Bella Rose, has been injured. After starring in the Grand Prix at the WEG in Normandy, the mare did not appear again, and is now seemingly out of action for good.<\/p>\n Isabell took gold\u00a0with \u00a0Weihegold,\u00a0a black 11 year old Oldenburg mare, at Rio – and then took gold again at the European Championships. Here they are at Aachen where they were named on the team…<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>and the horse that put her on the map –\u00a0\u00a0Gigolo<\/em><\/p>\n