{"id":56780,"date":"2020-12-17T13:56:11","date_gmt":"2020-12-17T02:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/?p=56780"},"modified":"2020-12-17T16:30:59","modified_gmt":"2020-12-17T05:30:59","slug":"valegro-the-horse-of-the-new-millennium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/2020\/12\/valegro-the-horse-of-the-new-millennium\/","title":{"rendered":"Valegro – the horse of the new millennium"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The turning point for competitive dressage, Charlotte and Valegro enter the world stage, Carl, watching, clings a pole arena side…<\/strong><\/em><\/h1>\n

Christopher Hector profiles the horse of the decade:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Every now and then you find yourself witness to a turning point in history – so it was at the European Dressage Championships in 2011, it was the competition that heralded the arrival of a new superstar combination – Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro.<\/h1>\n

Here’s my report at the time:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“It is the next horse that really brings joy to the arena. British team debutantes, Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro (by the Ferro son, Negro out of a mare by Gershwin, a son of Voltaire). This is what dressage should be about. The frame is perfect, the connection delightful. To a medley of Beatles tunes provided by the management, they spread their love around the big arena.<\/p>\n

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Super extended trot, so even, so engaged, so unhurried \u2013 8.9 and for the first time we have a horse in the 80s. The next extended trot is even better, 8.8.<\/p>\n

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Wonderful passage, the piaffe has such balance, only the extended walk lets them down a little for a 6.8, \u00a08.4 for the two times changes, 8.1 for the ones…\u00a0Big, expressive, straight, effortless. The judges rightly award an 8.8 for the rider, 9 would have not been excessive.<\/p>\n

First with all the judges on a 78.830, but really the C judge, Wotjek Markowski got it right with his 82. A new star combination is born, and boy oh boy, did the dressage world need one…”<\/p>\n

And in the freestyle:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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“Debutante, Charlotte Dujardin, playing Eliza to Carl\u2019s Professor Higgins, continues to be one of the brightest lights of this little party. The extended trot is truly perfection, so engaged, so huge, so rhythmic \u2013 see you can have a spectacular extension that is also correct, with no suggestion of less behind than there is in front. Whoops, they break into canter on the half pass, and the score hits the floor, 4.4. What me worry? 8.1 passage, 9.1 extended trot, 8 passage, and Charlotte is grabbing those marks back. 8.6 for a brilliant piaffe, what a complete horse this is, as happy to extend as it is to collect. There are a couple of mistakes in the changes but still they finish on 76.548.”<\/p>\n

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Suddenly the dressage wheel is turned full circle, gone the hideous ‘spectacular’ displays of Anky and poor Salinero, now the judges feel free to reward beautiful AND correct dressage.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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I also had the rare privilege in 2016 on being at Jerez de la Frontera. Valegro had been off the scene for an extended break, then we noticed a clipped gelding being ridden around the track, in the saddle was perhaps the most famous groom of all, Alan Davies, and the horse was Valegro.<\/p>\n

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Valegro didn’t compete in the single class at the Jerez CDI, but each day we were able watch Charlotte and Valegro working together – in truth it was better than any competition:<\/p>\n

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“The next day Charlotte Dujardin treats us with a lesson in how to train a horse. There is not one second of aimless random riding, every second is meaningful, and it is so easy to see what she is trying to achieve, and achieve it she does. That\u2019s one of the incredible things about this amazing partnership, when Valegro makes a mistake, she tells him, but he is not frightened in the slightest,\u00a0oh, sorry I got it wrong, let\u2019s do it right this time.”<\/em><\/p>\n

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“So here is the magic formula, do this 1000 times and you too can be a gold medallist. Breeze around the track a few times, onto the warm up arena, collect the canter, collect the canter, perfect transition to walk. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.<\/p>\n

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Collect the canter, half pass, change, collect, half pass change, circle, down the centre line, half pass in counter canter, flying change, changes of hand up the long side, more collected canter, circle and another walk transition.”<\/p>\n

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“Take a little break to remove a sweater, and sugar for Valegro, (they call it the sunshine tour, but don\u2019t mention that it can be sunny and freezing cold at the same time).<\/p>\n

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Two times changes down the long side, ones down the other long side, such expression. Twenty ones, five on the centre line, fifteen on the diagonal,..<\/p>\n

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Go for a walk around the outside track.”<\/p>\n

“Gather the reins, passage to halt, passage to halt, repeat. Into the competition arena, passage around the outside. By this time, most of the riders from the Royal School have got the message, and are crowding to see this wonderful rider at work. Big trot, big passage, working trot, renvers, shoulder in, renvers, straight. Valegro gets a bit excited in the shoulder in, more extreme renvers, like I mean four track renvers. Walk on a loose rein, and sugar break.<\/p>\n

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More passage, shoulder in to a big flowing half pass, and the other way, shoulder in half pass, more of that four track renvers\u2026”<\/p>\n

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“Walk on loose rein, Valegro wants to canter, Charlotte wants passage, into some super advancing piaffe, amazing elevated passage, more advancing piaffe, quarter pirouette in piaffe, more amazing passage. Repeat. A full pirouette in piaffe, more amazing passage, such contained elasticity, drop the reins and the horse walks out as cool as if he\u2019d been for a hack round the country side.”<\/p>\n

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“Got that? Sorry, the next day the routine is completely different. Great riding is like that\u2026”<\/p>\n

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I have been privileged to witness some fabulous dressage horses over the past four decades, none gave me such pleasure as Valegro, proof he was, at a time dressage desperately needed it, that harmony, that horse friendly dressage could not only compete at the highest level but could win time after time. Thank you Charlotte, thank you to Carl and all, Team Hester, but most of all, thank you Valegro.”<\/p>\n

– CH<\/p>\n

So many more great pix of this combination to add – we’ll let you know when this site gets an up-date<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We celebrate the horse of the decade – Valegro – with a fabulous collection of photographs….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":56820,"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":[81,4,1903,1901],"tags":[953,468,636],"class_list":["post-56780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-dressage","category-dressage-tests","category-grand-prix-dressage","tag-carl-hester","tag-charlotte-dujardin","tag-valegro"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56780","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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56780"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56822,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56780\/revisions\/56822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}