{"id":66827,"date":"2023-07-25T17:30:48","date_gmt":"2023-07-25T07:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/?p=66827"},"modified":"2023-12-20T16:56:52","modified_gmt":"2023-12-20T05:56:52","slug":"princess-nathalie-at-aachen-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/2023\/07\/princess-nathalie-at-aachen-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Princess Nathalie at Aachen 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christopher Hector talks about the dressage world today with Princess Nathalie<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Nathalie is a truth teller, one who is never afraid to speak her mind, and at Aachen she remarked to me that she felt the heart had gone out of dressage\u2026<\/h1>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Nathalie and Digby under the eyes of the judges at Aachen<\/em><\/p>\n

Nathalie said to Christopher:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI was talking to someone yesterday about the negative press for equestrian sport, and the negative will always catch the headlines, instead of the good parts. I said, yes, but first we have to ask ourselves where has the heart gone in the sport?\u00a0There are still some that are there with their heart, but the main part have lost their heart, it is only money. That\u2019s sad, really sad.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

What do we do, we can\u2019t turn the clock back until the days when the minor gentry took charge of the sport\u2026<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s difficult to turn the clock back and we can\u2019t, but I think we really have to sit down and think, what can we do so that we can still have the sport, still ride horses in twenty years time, because I think the sport is in danger. It\u2019s definitely in danger, and if we don\u2019t all get together and think what we can do, to not make this happen. I think it\u2019s a lot the heart, thirty years ago, top riders would never ever ever have sold their best horse. Now it\u2019s a common thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Herning Euros in 2013, Princess Nathalie retired Digby her medal winner for Denmark…<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cYou have an up-and-coming Grand Prix horse, it\u2019s sold, you have your top Grand Prix horse and someone offers you millions of Euros, you just sell it. That would never have been the case thirty years ago, even twenty five years ago.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

There wasn\u2019t that sort of money on offer so they were never tested, Dr Neckermann didn\u2019t need it but if someone had come up to your mentor, Klaus Balkenhol with a couple of million, he might have blinked\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe, but in the end, his top horse he would never have sold, I don\u2019t think so. We\u2019ll never know.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

But we are getting more and more like showjumping\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIn dressage you need that partnership more, you build a true partnership with your horse, otherwise you can\u2019t perform. You can see it with Dalera and Jessica, they know each other so well, and that partnership you can\u2019t buy with money, you have to earn your partnership together with your horse, and that\u2019s years of training and being together, and caring for your horse.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Jessica von Bredow-Werndl and her partner, Dalera<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are riders that are hardly in the stable, they just come, get on, ride, give the horse back to the groom and off they go. That\u2019s not a partnership in my opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dalera might almost be unique in that I don\u2019t think she\u2019s the most naturally gifted horse, but as I wrote in my Grand Prix report, she might just be the best horse, because they achieve everything together, it\u2019s not like she\u2019s sitting on some natural superstar like S\u00f6nke on Fendi\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI think if you put Dalera in a field and didn\u2019t tell anyone what it is, then it\u2019s not the one you would choose.\u201d<\/p>\n

And I doubt that anyone else could ride her with the same degree of success\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s because Jessica has built the partnership. I don\u2019t think anyone would have been able to ride Digby like I rode him but that\u2019s because of a unique partnership. Take any of Kyra\u2019s horses, or Cathrine\u2019s horses, that\u2019s just the partnership you build.\u201d<\/h1>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Cathrine Dufour and her now-retired star, Cassidy, a special partnership…<\/em><\/p>\n

Now we are in danger of losing all of that\u2026<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI think we are half way to losing all that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Daniel Bachmann and Vayron warming up with Nathalie looking on…<\/em><\/p>\n

The tall blonde boy that you are helping, I have the suspicion that he is the best rider in the world, what makes Daniel such a good rider?<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHe has a lot of feeling, and when he makes a mistake, or a test didn\u2019t go as it should have gone, he will go back and think about what he could have done different. What to change, and with him you can change it in one riding session, one training session, and then he will go in and do what you have worked on. For him, it is never the horse that made the mistake, it\u2019s him who made the mistake and that\u2019s also very unique, especially for such an ambitious boy.\u201d<\/h1>\n

\u201cHe really has the mentality, he has also earned his way up, it\u2019s not gone like up, up, up. He\u2019s had set-backs and horses that have broken. When he came to Blue Hors he took over some horses that had niggly injuries, he had to ride what he had. I think if it hadn\u2019t been for Daniel, Zack would never have been a Grand Prix horse. He just found the way to get the horse on his side, and that is also really unique. When he likes a horse, he will really get it to work for him \u2013 they become one unit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Daniel and Vayron competing at Aachen 2023 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/em> – Dirk Caremans image<\/p>\n

Is Vayron the best horse you\u2019ve seen him ride?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI think so, definitely. It also suits him, it\u2019s like the hand in a glove.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was watching you train him for quite a long time, okay the piaffe is still a work in progress, but there doesn\u2019t seem a chink in that horse\u2019s armour, no-where where he is weak\u2026<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cNo there isn\u2019t one. You have to remember the horse is now twelve years old, he got it when it was eleven. The horse had learned some movements, it\u2019s hard to say in a wrong way, but not the way he would have learnt the horse the movement with Daniel. It was really stepping back nearly six steps and starting completely from the beginning. He had to teach the horse, also with its long body, it\u2019s tall and long and it had to find the right balance to be able to carry him, and itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it looks so amazing..<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"Daniel and Vayron – Dirk\u00a0Caremans image\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not the end, we are just at the beginning. At home he does some piaffe passage and you just go, oh my god!<\/em> But okay it\u2019s still so new that it\u2019s difficult to bring it to the warming up and also to the arena. At home he can already get it and that is the first step.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Is Paris too soon?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cNope! Definitely not, and he is not going to Paris just to participate.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

Breeding dressage horses in Australia this season? Go to www.ihb.com for a great selection of top European stallions – like F\u00fcrstenball and many more…\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Has dressage lost its heart? Princess Nathalie is worried about the future of equestrian sport. An exclusive interview with Christopher Hector…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":66838,"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":[1905,1243,366],"class_list":["post-66827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-dressage","tag-daniel-bachmann-andersen","tag-dressage","tag-princess-nathalie"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66827","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66827"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67418,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66827\/revisions\/67418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}