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Share Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro’s first big win at the Euros in 2011…<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n 26-year-old Charlotte is not just a joy to watch in the competition arena, she is a delight to interview. Charlotte has been working with Carl Hester for four years. Have you made a Grand Prix horse before this one? \u201cHe is like a power machine. As a young horse he always had the power, teaching him, he was very, very clever, very bright. You taught him one thing, and the next day he had it. His extended trot, his extended canter, his changes, his piaffe \u2013 when you sit on a horse like that, it is amazing. He is so sensitive as well, I don\u2019t kick, I don\u2019t have to pull, I just kind of sit, and boom he\u2019s gone.\u201d<\/p>\n Here has been my best ever competition. Out in the warm ups, he is only nine, so he usually makes mistakes \u2013 whereas here at Rotterdam, I did everything right outside and I was like, oh my god because sometimes if it goes too good out there then it is not so great inside, but I went into the arena and he did the same. It was fantastic.\u201d Did Carl ever ride him? How did you get the ride \u2013 threaten Carl with an axe\u2026 Before you rode dressage\u2026 \u201cValegro is so easy to ride now, you can take him anywhere, hack him out, in the fields, he loves people\u2026 even though he was hot when he was younger, he was never naughty, he has never reared, never bucked, never napped, just literally was hot \u2013 he had all this power and he didn\u2019t know what to do with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nWas international success always the aim?
\n<\/em>\u201cAbsolutely. I always wanted to do Grand Prix, the Olympics was always my goal. I was very lucky to have worked with Judy Harvey for four years before Carl. She gave me a lot of knowledge, then having this four years with Carl was the best thing of my life, really.\u201d
\n\u201cI have the best job in the world. I have nothing but fun with Carl. He is fantastic, we laugh and joke all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"valegroext\"](\"http:\/\/www.horsemagazine.com\/thm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/ValegroExt-e1481601321384.jpg\")
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\n<\/em>\u201cI have, my own horse, Fernandez, I bought him as a three-year-old. I rode him in the Grand Prix at Aachen. I took him all the way from three to Grand Prix\u2026 I have been riding Valegro since he was four, coming five.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nDoes the atmosphere get to him?
\n<\/em>\u201cHe\u2019s never been anywhere like this. He\u2019s never seen cameras, he has only been to a couple of smaller international shows.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>\u201cHe showed him a couple of times as a four-year-old, and then that was it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n<\/em>\u201cValegro was very, very hot as a young horse and I kind of started riding him, and I never let Carl have him back. I went um ah, this is mine.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>\u201cI was into showing. I won Horse of the Year at Hickstead, ponies and horses, and I won four or five times. My trainer was a lady called Debby Thomas, she was a dressage trainer, and she always tried to get me to do dressage, and I was like, no, didn\u2019t fancy it. Then she put me on her horse one day, did a little bit of piaffe, bit of passage, some changes. She was amazed that I managed to pick it up. I had an Irish Thoroughbred of my own, which I used to show, and I went, I am going to teach him to piaffe, I did. He was amazing, he was the best little piaffe\/passage machine there was, just brilliant. I used to go round everywhere doing it, and people were like wow!\u201d<\/p>\n