{"id":47230,"date":"2019-09-18T17:02:22","date_gmt":"2019-09-18T07:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/?p=47230"},"modified":"2023-06-30T15:50:37","modified_gmt":"2023-06-30T05:50:37","slug":"jessica-von-bredow-werndl-talks-to-rebecca-ashton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/2019\/09\/jessica-von-bredow-werndl-talks-to-rebecca-ashton\/","title":{"rendered":"Jessica von Bredow Werndl talks to Rebecca Ashton"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pictures: Rebecca Ashton, Roslyn Neave, Jacques Toffi<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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On the podium at the WEG in Tryon in 2018: German dressage team: Chef d’Equipe Klaus Roeser, Isabell Werth, Dorothee Schneider, Sonke Rothenberger, Jessica Von Bredow-Werndl<\/strong><\/em>
\nPhoto FEI\/MARTIN DOKOUPIL<\/em><\/p>\n

Horses have been part of Jessica\u2019s life from the very beginning, riding in her first big championships, the Bundeschampionate at age 12. At age 16 she rode in her first Europeans and has never looked back. She\u2019s won six gold at Junior and YR Europeans as well as being three times German Junior\/YR Champion. As a senior, she\u2019s been on the podium at the World Cup Finals, Aachen CHIO, the Europeans and World Equestrian Games both as a German team member and individually.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Her most successful senior partners have been the stallion, Unee BB – pictured above. And her mare, Dalera BB.<\/span><\/em><\/h1>\n

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Jessica von Bredow Werndl – TSF Dalera BB,\u00a0FEI World Equestrian Games Tryon 2018<\/em>
\n\u00a9 DigiShots<\/em><\/p>\n

Jessica trained with Isabell Werth in the past, and the German now works with her brother Benjamin, also a successful rider, as well as Jonny Hilberath, and Andreas Hausberger from The Spanish Riding School. <\/span><\/p>\n

I interviewed Jessica at the Europeans in Rotterdam where she had a rollercoaster of a show with Dalera. From a uncharacteristic miscommunication in the Grand Prix, which brought tears of shock to the rider, she stormed back for a glorious Special, and a Personal Best freestyle, which saw her with a team gold and individual bronze, beaten only by her team mates, also with PBs.<\/span><\/p>\n

The softly spoken petite rider hides a real competitiveness and passion for bringing out the very best in her \u201chighly intelligent\u201d four legged proteges. Balanced, open and super friendly Jessica loves sharing the loves of her life, bringing out photos and videos of her husband riding across country, her son doing yoga, and her beloved Unee free jumping.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Do you only dressage training or other work too?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Both. At home I separate between conditioning training, and technical training. We have conditioning training times, mostly one period in Autumn and one in Spring. And she has always her recuperation time.<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s conditioning for your horses? On the track? Jumps?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Yes, on the track, but not the jumps. <\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s a normal day for Dalera?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

She goes into the field for two to three hours before she comes in and has a rest in her box then I ride her. After her ride she gets lunch. The horses love it, they lay down and relax. In the afternoon, they come out for hand walking, grazing or the paddock plus the treadmill or aqua trainer. It just depends on my training programme.<\/span><\/p>\n

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So they\u2019re busy all day?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Yes. We take Dalera out four times a day. \u00a0<\/span>You can switch her on or off. It\u2019s perfect!<\/span><\/p>\n

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Bronze at Rotterdam<\/em><\/p>\n

How did you come together?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

The horse’s owner, Beatrice B\u00fcrchler-Keller, bought her almost six years ago, and she kept her at her own barn in Switzerland. She thought maybe there is more. I already had other horses from her. I went to Switzerland, and it already felt that the horse was a perfect match.<\/span><\/p>\n

She was at M level at this time and she was a bit afraid of the flying changes, but she already showed a huge talent for piaffe\/passage. We fixed the flying change issue pretty soon. The longer I have her, the more she trusts me, and the easier it gets.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Current Number one for Jessica, Dalera<\/em><\/p>\n

Is she your favourite?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Maybe now, she really feels like the number one, because she\u2019s the horse I\u2019m doing the championships with, but I actually really love all the horses I\u2019m training. I have a great partnership with them. When I come into the stable, the first thing I do is cuddle them all if they\u2019re not in the field. She\u2019s something special to me, but they\u2019re all special. I like to compare the horses with highly intelligent children. They\u2019re all different. They have completely different characters and it is so exciting for me to find an entrance to their personality and to work with them all.<\/span><\/p>\n

Do you have a personality you prefer, or do you like the challenge of lots of different ones?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s both. On the one hand, I like the hot ones I have to calm down. Even sometimes the crazy ones. I don\u2019t know why! I like to manage it, to help them calm down and trust me and to build a partnership. Dalera was really crazy when she was young.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I love riding the Grand Prix test. And I also like to ride the young horses, it\u2019s fun to do it, but my real passion is to bring them up from S level to Grand Prix or really to improve the Grand Prix horse\u2019s performance.<\/span><\/h1>\n

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I think my greatest strength is that I have a very good feeling. It\u2019s all about positive reinforcement. I don\u2019t want to force horses to do anything. I want to give them a reason to do it, with a lot of patting, and celebrating their good work, then they want more. That\u2019s the only way I like.<\/span><\/p>\n

I know you also do and promote rider fitness work. What sort of exercises do you do and why? Surely five to seven horses a day is enough!<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Every morning I start with sun salutations, three from the right and three from the left. That takes exactly four and a half minutes. There\u2019s no excuse not to do it. In the morning it\u2019s quite difficult to do more because of my son, though now he\u2019s started to do yoga with me. He\u2019s two. He\u2019s just on the plane coming here now (Jessica gets the photos out\u2026.and he really is very cute!) When he\u2019s sleeping at night, I\u2019m doing yoga again and some strength training. I combine it. I have certain exercises.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why yoga for you?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

To connect. It\u2019s like meditation for me. I prefer yoga to meditation, but sometimes I also meditate. But I feel it\u2019s easier for me to focus on my breathing when I\u2019m moving slowly. Then I combine it with things like sit ups and side planks. When I do that regularly, I sit better and I feel my body so much better and I feel my horse\u2019s body so much better. It doesn\u2019t need to be long. It\u2019s about 15-20 minutes a day. You have a completely different body feeling.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s why we initiated \u2018Dressurfit\u2019 rider body (fitness program). It\u2019s going to be in English very soon. It\u2019s so easy, because there are no excuses. It\u2019s only 10-25 minutes and you can choose how much time you have, and what level. There are tests to check how fit you are. It\u2019s really for riders from riders.<\/span><\/p>\n

How does your barn work with you and your brother?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

We run it together. I\u2019m more doing the internal management, like personal and staff management, and he manages the clients and training, together with one of our three riders. Altogether we have employees. You need them if you want to take the horses out so many times a day. \u00a0It\u2019s a super business because it\u2019s our passion. When you can combine your passion with your job, it\u2019s perfect.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Jessica and Unee at Neum\u00fcnster<\/em><\/p>\n

What\u2019s Unee doing now?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

He\u2019s very fit. He\u2019s doing free jumping. Not very high but he\u2019s in perfect shape.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Unee and Jessica at home at Aubenhausen<\/em><\/p>\n

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On the podium at Rotterdam, Dorothee Schneider, Isabell Werth, and Jessica samples the champagne…<\/em><\/p>\n

more follows below<\/em><\/p>\n

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Do you get nervous at competitions?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

A little, but I need it to get focused.<\/span><\/p>\n

When you\u2019re coming into the stadium at a big championships, what goes through your mind?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

The best thing is if nothing goes through your mind but riding the centreline! That\u2019s what I always try, to be in the here and now. I train it. Sometimes it works, sometimes not! <\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s to like being in the German Team. It\u2019s the best team in the world.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

It has advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantage is that I have to go first, and for any other team I would probably be the last to go. But the advantage is, if you can make the German Team, you have a great chance of winning gold. <\/span><\/p>\n

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What\u2019s Dalera like as a person?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

She\u2019s a rockstar in the arena and the cutest horse in the world in the box. She loves cuddling, she\u2019s so sweet and so clever. She knows exactly what\u2019s going on.<\/span><\/p>\n

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You\u2019re really big on Instagram. Do you think that\u2019s important?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

The reason I started with it was to show that my horses go out in the field so other people would put their horses in the field. I never expected it to get so big, but now it\u2019s also cool for my sponsors, and also for my friends so they know what I\u2019m doing. They say they feel like they\u2019re with me and share the experience. It has more advantages than disadvantages. I also think it helps the sport.<\/span><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

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Meet Jessica von Bredow Werndl, the new star on the German medal winning team. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":47252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,4],"tags":[20,1907,1066],"class_list":["post-47230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-dressage","tag-dressage-training","tag-grand-prix-dressage","tag-jessica-von-bredow-werndl"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47230"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66636,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47230\/revisions\/66636"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}