{"id":24114,"date":"2015-09-01T15:52:07","date_gmt":"2015-09-01T05:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/?p=24114"},"modified":"2017-02-10T11:16:12","modified_gmt":"2017-02-10T00:16:12","slug":"golden-girl-helen-firth-interviews-a-superstar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/2015\/09\/golden-girl-helen-firth-interviews-a-superstar\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlotte Dujardin: Helen Firth interviews a Superstar"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"9101<\/a>We got up close and personal with British dressage superstar Charlotte Dujardin during her two-week trip to New Zealand in January. She spoke about Valegro being taken off the market, her own training philosophies and why New Zealand dressage riders need to sharpen up.<\/b><\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard not to be a little star-struck when you meet somebody as famous as Charlotte, the face and swingy blonde pony tail instantly recognizable from television and a hundred magazine articles. And I\u2019m clearly not the only one: one rider was literally shaking before her lesson, although any nerves must have quickly dissipated as Charlotte got down to the very serious business of teaching. The intensity of her training wasn\u2019t surprising; obviously you don\u2019t get to win gold medals without breaking a sweat, even if perspiration looks a long way from the Charlotte \u2018look\u2019: the designer sunglasses and impractically long fingernails that don\u2019t look like they\u2019ve ever been anywhere near a horse \u2013 Charlotte is the Queen of Bling and a self-proclaimed shopaholic.<\/p>\n

Although Charlotte shies away from media attention, and is much more in her element teaching and riding than conducting interviews, she is nevertheless friendly and funny once you pin her down to chat. However, it did take Charlotte a little while to adjust to dressage, Kiwi-style. She\u2019d been warned by Greg Smith, a close friend and Kumeu-based event\/dressage rider who orchestrated Charlotte\u2019s visit, that the standard might not be quite what she is used to at home.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut actually, the horses have been pretty good and the riders are good. It\u2019s just that everybody is a lot more chilled out and laid back here,\u201d she reflected. \u201cYou say kick and nobody kicks! You say go and their go is my working canter. Everything has got to be sharper. I think people here are happy for a six or a seven, whereas we\u2019re always trying to go for those nines and tens. It\u2019s incredible how you can change a picture just by putting a bit more motivation and lift into it. It\u2019s been great to see the\u00a0difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTalking to the riders it seems like everybody leaves their horses out in the field overnight, which we just wouldn\u2019t do. That\u2019s great if you\u2019ve got a really sharp horse, or a young horse – we leave our young horses out overnight – but with your top competition horses, there\u2019s no way you can do it from the grass. They\u2019re out all day, they eat all night and then they come in and work…that\u2019s like you eating a full meal and then going to the gym!\u201d<\/p>\n

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Charlotte and Valegro, Champions<\/em><\/p>\n

Because Charlotte teaches on Wednesdays and Saturdays, her horses only school four days a week: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. On the other days, they hack and\/or go on the water treadmill, and Sunday is a day off. \u201cIf you ask most people, they train five or six days a week. For us, it\u2019s not about how much you school them. Our horses are always fresh to come into the school. I think it\u2019s great to break it up and let them do something different. In the summer they go cantering around the fields, they hack, they do all sorts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charlotte\u2019s horses, however, are a lot fitter than the Kiwi equines she encountered. \u201cI think it\u2019s just we push ours, whereas everybody is so laid back here, aren\u2019t they? You have to push to get somewhere. You don\u2019t become a top gymnast by not pushing yourself to the\u00a0limit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 28-year-old is no slouch in the fitness stakes herself. Tiny and toned, she protests \u2018don\u2019t look at me at the moment, because we\u2019ve had Christmas-time and I\u2019ve just let loose. I feel horrendous now \u2013 I\u2019m dreading going home!\u2019 Usually Charlotte goes to the gym and works with a personal trainer at least three or four times a week, even though she\u2019s so busy riding and teaching she doesn\u2019t get there until 8 o\u2019clock at night. \u201cI absolutely love it. I\u2019m missing it now, as it makes you feel so much better. I do a lot of core strength \u2013 I can stand on the gym ball, do squats on the gym ball. And obviously everybody has a weaker side and a stronger side, so I have to work on my left side and do a lot of resistance with my left leg.\u201d<\/p>\n

Describing herself as an adrenalin junkie, Charlotte relished the chance to go white-water rafting and bungy jumping during her New Zealand working holiday, and had a fabulous time taking Melissa Steed\u2019s horse for a gallop along Muriwai Beach. \u201cIt was brilliant \u2013 we went for a good old blast, flat out,\u201d she enthused. \u201cIf I lived here, I\u2019d be out there all the time.\u201d Charlotte was joined by her fianc\u00e9 Dean Wyatt Golding, a former marathon runner and triathlete, who had only previously ridden half a dozen times in his life. \u201cIt\u2019s quite hard teaching him on my horses, because they are so sensitive, and when his legs go in the wrong place…well, he has fallen off a few times! But he wanted to go for a ride down on the beach with us, and although he hasn\u2019t ridden for over a year he picked up rising trot straight away and he went for a good gallop down the beach.\u201d<\/p>\n

At home, Charlotte earns her living by teaching two full days a week, and trains all sorts. In Auckland, her riders varied from adult amateurs competing at Level 2\/3 through to Grand Prix riders. \u201cI\u2019m not a snob. It doesn\u2019t matter to me what standard I teach. If I can give them maybe two or three tips to go away with then that\u2019s what they\u2019ve paid me to do. If that means just walk, trot and canter on a circle and I can do something to help them I get as much of a buzz out of that as I do out of teaching someone at Grand Prix. People are always like \u2018I\u2019m not good enough for you\u2019, but it\u2019s not about being good enough, it\u2019s about helping. I\u2019m not here to sit and criticize – I\u2019m here to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

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One of the riders Charlotte worked with in NZ was Charmain Pearson-White and her five year old, Wimborne Conniston (Conny). Left to right: Charlotte felt Conny was too long and round in his outline for a competition frame; Charlotte said Conny was also too curled to the inside. She wanted Charmain to keep his head and neck straighter to the outside; Charmain began to get Conny in a bit more of an uphill frame.<\/i><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get the wrong impression though: there\u2019s nothing warm and fuzzy about Charlotte\u2019s teaching. She\u2019s honest and authoritative and if something\u2019s terrible, she\u2019ll let you know in no uncertain terms.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no point me sitting here telling everybody it\u2019s good when I know everything can be better. I hate watching teaching when people just sit there and say \u2018Good, good.\u2019 I find that really frustrating. I correct things the way I would if I was riding and try to put that feeling to other riders. The main thing is making riders a lot more quick-thinking. If you make a mistake you\u2019ve got to correct it straight away, not leave it until you\u2019re half-way around the arena – the horse is not going to learn from\u00a0that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charlotte\u2019s trip to New Zealand came shortly after the announcement her beloved Valegro had been taken off the market \u2013 his owners Carl Hester and Roly Luard have decided to keep him, ending a tumultuous year for Charlotte. She is, naturally, \u2018ecstatic\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019ll be at home with us forever, until he dies,\u201d she smiles. \u201cThe whole of last year was a rollercoaster, because at every show I didn\u2019t know whether I was going to keep the horse. I went into every competition thinking it could be my last ride.\u201d<\/p>\n

The original plan was to sell the dazzlingly beautiful \u2018Blueberry\u2019 after the Olympics, yet buyers were not forthcoming, perhaps deterred by the price-tag (rumoured to be around Aus$11.2 million) or the strength of his partnership with Charlotte. However, Charlotte believes he would probably give somebody else what he gives her. \u201cObviously I know him inside out, which makes it a bit more special. But if you ride a horse like that…it\u2019s one in a million isn\u2019t it? You can\u2019t find those sorts of horses \u2013 it\u2019s just a freak of nature that comes along.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t doubt that what Carl and I have done has made him a really good horse, but the work ethic that horse has, the love and determination and the will to do it is phenomenal. I can ride him at home in the arena and I can put him in a competition arena and he does exactly the same thing \u2013 how many horses go the same at a competition? They don\u2019t. They\u2019re either backing off or they know they\u2019ve got you in there and you have to work harder for it. He just goes in, no matter what and performs, so as a rider he fills you with so much confidence. At home a 76-year-old lady hacks him out on the roads. All the girls hack him. I put kids on him.\u201d<\/p>\n

And while Charlotte and Carl\u2019s relationship went through a tricky patch post-Olympics, the golden duo of British dressage has bounced back stronger than ever, with a string of Grand Prix horses and several exciting younger ones coming up.
\n\u201cCarl is closer than a friend to me – he\u2019s more like family now. We work so closely together. He takes the piss out of me, I take the piss out of me; I tell him what to do, even though he doesn\u2019t like it and he shouts and screams at me, and that\u2019s what I like \u2013 I like having that\u00a0criticism.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Left: Conny decided collected canter work in the hot sun was hard work and he\u2019s had enough! Charlotte told Charmain not to give up, but to keep the contact and keep turning left; Right: Charmain got Conny back on track with a really forward trot around the arena.<\/i><\/p>\n

Born in Enfield, Charlotte\u2019s been called an Essex girl, but she explains she didn\u2019t really stay there long enough to qualify. Her rags-to-riches story is well-documented \u2013 she grew up with a horsey mum and an older sister, Emma-Jayne, who also rode. She first sat on a horse at the age of about two, and started her career show jumping and showing, with much success at Britain\u2019s Horse of the Year Show in showing classes.\u00a0 \u201cWe never had the money to go and buy top ponies, so I rode all the ones nobody else wanted because they were so naughty and then we had to sort them out,\u201d she explains. \u201cI used to go all over the place, trying to qualify everyone else\u2019s ponies for them, because they couldn\u2019t do it, and then they would ride them at the championships. I learnt so much from that, riding all those naughty ponies. I loved it \u2013 for me it was a huge challenge, and I\u2019m still like that now. I love the naughty ones!\u201d<\/p>\n

Charlotte took up dressage at the age of 17, and went to Judy Harvey as a working pupil for four years. Her first dressage horse, Fernandez, was purchased with her grandmother\u2019s inheritance. A German-bred horse by Florestan, he was only three years old and wasn\u2019t particularly expensive, although for the Dujardins it was a lot of money at the time. \u201cWe knew nothing about dressage and we didn\u2019t know if he was going to be a good horse, we just bought him because he bolted with somebody around the arena and we thought it would be perfect for me because it was fast! He just happened to be the most amazing Grand Prix horse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having trained him to Grand Prix herself, it was an awful wrench for Charlotte to sell the horse, but she had no option. \u201cFinancially we didn\u2019t have the money to back myself to keep going. It\u2019s such an expensive hobby and when you\u2019re travelling abroad, away from home and not making any money it\u2019s even harder. So it was just something we had to do and I was really fortunate that my Mum then gave me some money to be able to buy a house.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charlotte went to work for Carl when she was just 21, and she started riding Valegro when he was rising five. Carl had done a couple of young horse classes on him, and he was being ridden by Lucy Cartwright, who worked for Carl at the time. \u201cHe was hot. He\u2019s always been hot, but in a good way, in a way that doesn\u2019t make you think you\u2019re going to be off at any point. He\u2019s just sensitive. He used to canter and I\u2019m not joking, four strides down the long side and you were there, it was huge, massive, and that was\u00a0 partly the reason I got the ride because Lucy was so small, bless her, he was just carting her around the arena.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite his obvious talent, Charlotte says there was a time when Carl was unsure whether Blueberry would do the piaffe-passage. He was so nervous and whip-shy that Charlotte could never carry a whip or he\u2019d panic and melt down. \u201cWe normally teach them to jog with the whip, just to help them learn to bounce a little bit, but it took me ages because he just kept cantering. Until he learned to jog, I couldn\u2019t get the piaffe steps. We had to just keep doing really small bits and once he clicked what we wanted that was it, we were flying.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Working on the medium canter-collected canter transitions on the circle is hard work for Conny, but it helps keep him in front of the leg and more uphill in his frame.<\/i><\/p>\n

The rest of course is history \u2013 Charlotte and Valegro won a team gold medal at the Europeans just five months after they did their first Grand Prix. In their second year of Grand Prix, they won gold medals at the Olympics and notched up world records \u2013 an unprecedented rise in the world of\u00a0dressage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did an insane amount of stuff and it took me until January last year to kind of stop and think back on what we\u2019d achieved. It was go, go, go, so I didn\u2019t really get the time to appreciate what I\u2019d done.\u201d The media hype and attention that surrounded Charlotte was a surprise and somewhat overwhelming \u2013 she and Dean were even \u2018papped\u2019 while on holiday in Barbados.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, that was a bit surreal. I\u2019m not joking you, I get fan-mail every day and people telling me how I\u2019ve inspired them to pick up riding \u2013 I think oh poor husbands!\u201d she jokes. \u201cAfter the Olympics I had men who had no idea about horses saying I was the girl on the dancing horse and I\u2019d made them cry. That\u2019s amazing for our sport. It\u2019s exactly what we need.\u201d<\/p>\n

It does lead to the question, of course, what comes next \u2013 what\u2019s left to achieve when you\u2019ve already reached the pinnacle of your sport at the age of 28? And does she have another Valegro in the wings?<\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely want to do the World Equestrian Games. I think that\u2019s the last thing I\u2019ve got left to conquer. But you just keep going, don\u2019t you. You always want to do better. I know in my Grand Prix I can still score higher, it\u2019s just making no mistakes, and that\u2019s the thing \u2013 it\u2019s being able to go for that knife edge, where you\u2019re almost going to make a mistake but you don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Besides Valegro, Charlotte currently has the ride on Carl\u2019s former mount Uthopia, and Carl himself has three other Grand Prix horses. Within days of returning from her New Zealand trip Charlotte was off to Amsterdam for a World Cup qualifier, as this year she\u2019s contesting the World Cup series for the first time with Valegro. He will then have a quieter period through the middle of the year and she\u2019ll pick him up just before the Worlds. \u201cHe only did four shows last year. If you just keep pushing and pushing it ruins them. He\u2019s such a sound, fit horse I don\u2019t want anything to go wrong. You\u2019ve got to look after them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charlotte also has three young horses of her own; two four-year-olds and a five-year-old. The five-year-old, Johnny Cash, is a Warmblood cross, out of a Thoroughbred mare. Charlotte found him cheap in a field as a three-year-old and says he\u2019s super talented, although he\u2019s also quite naughty and has bucked her off a number of times. \u201cHe was very cold backed. I\u2019ve probably fallen off and hurt myself more times on him than anything. Luckily I\u2019ve never broken anything, but I\u2019ve hit the ground very hard!\u201d<\/p>\n

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The four-year-olds are both Dutch-bred, one by Jazz and the other by Amp\u00e8re. \u201cThey\u2019re all very different but they\u2019re really, really exciting and I think they\u2019re all good enough to be Grand Prix horses although they haven\u2019t competed yet. At home I can\u2019t ride the lower levels, which would be your Level 1 and 2 \u2013 we are banned from riding those – and they\u2019re not ready for Medium (Level 4) yet. There are young horse classes, but I don\u2019t really like doing those because they just want to see them move with their legs around their ears and huge trots and huge canters, but to me that doesn\u2019t make a top Grand Prix horse, so I don\u2019t bother.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charlotte says she can absolutely imagine having the same special partnership she has with Valegro with another horse in the future \u2013 she had it with Fernandez, and could ride the Grand Prix on him in a head collar and rope, bareback. \u201cI think it\u2019s all about having them from a young horse. Along the way you build such a huge partnership and learn so much about your horse.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Carl has always been Charlotte\u2019s equestrian hero and mentor, even now she loves going to shows and watching other riders. \u201cYou always learn small things from each person, just by watching. Everybody does everything slightly different, so I don\u2019t watch just one person but I do love watching Edward Gal. I think he\u2019s incredibly clever how he rides and the control he gets over his horses is phenomenal. It\u2019s almost like they become a computer rather than a horse, it\u2019s unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"9105<\/a>FIVE THINGS YOU DIDN\u2019T KNOW ABOUT CHARLOTTE
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Charlotte calls Carl Hester \u2018Granddad\u2019 and he dubbed her \u2018Edwina\u2019 (after Edward Scissorhands \u2013 because he says she used to be a bit strong and wooden in her movements!)<\/p>\n

She has a pair of lucky Pikeur breeches which she didn\u2019t change throughout the Olympics. When she got her first world record in Hagen, Charlotte wrote \u2018world record\u2019 in them with permanent marker and has worn them ever since. They now hold three world records and five gold medals!<\/p>\n

Her favourite food is smoked salmon<\/p>\n

She hated school, because she couldn\u2019t see how it had any relevance to what she wanted to do with her life\u00a0–\u00a0horses<\/p>\n

If she hadn\u2019t made it as a rider, she would have liked to work in an animal rescue centre, because she\u2019s always loved caring for animals<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared in NZ Horse & Pony, and in the March 2014 issue of THM.<\/em><\/p>\n

Dujardin, Charlotte<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n