Dressage at Olympia Crowns a New Duke

Dressage at Olympia Crowns a New Duke

Written by Amy Powell

After two nights of tough competition in the World Cup Dressage classes at Olympia, the London International Horse Show welcomed an international contingent of winners. Dutch rider Hans Peter Minderhoud claimed the Grand Prix on board Glock’s Dream Boy N.O.P and Frederic Wandres was crowned as Olympia’s first German winner of the Freestyle riding Duke of Britain.

World Cup Grand Prix

Monday night saw Hans Peter pilot the promising young 10 year old Glock’s Dream Boy N.O.P, to a score of 73.895% to secure victory over Charlotte Dujardin riding Carl Hester’s Hawtins Delicato, who was hot on Hans Peter’ heels with a score of 73.026%. Wandres riding the British bred Duke of Britain sat in third scoring 72.026, having had a mistake in the 1 time tempi changes to drop him down the order.

During the first evening’s dressage the drastic change in format from the usual World Cup Grand Prix class was played out. The shortened test followed by interviews conducted immediately after formed the main part of the new proceedings. Charlotte Dujardin commented:

The test for me rides really fast, I don’t know if it’s just because it’s new but it was a bit difficult to get flowing but it is a bit bitty, and quick-coming,”

“But I think it’s great for the crowd to be behind us and get a sense of how we’re feeling, and it’s something we’ve got to get more confidence doing – having an interview as soon as you’ve got off your horse.”

The general consensus of the riders is that the movements in the test came thick and fast, which made it difficult to settle the horses into a rhythm. However, the overall concept of the new format was seen as a positive way to engage the audience and allow them insight into riders’ thoughts about their rides.

Freestyle

The second night saw the return of a more standard format with the freestyle class. After a night of mistakes from the majority of riders, solid performances from Frederic and Charlotte saw them achieve an Olympia first of joint scores, having both achieved 80.03%. Due to receiving the higher creative marks, it was the German (Frederic) who took the top honours over the queen of dressage, on this his first visit to the event.

This is the best Christmas present I’ve ever had!”

He laughed,

and I have to say, I came here on Saturday and from the first second on, everyone was really friendly. It is the best show I’ve ever been to and it has been amazing,” he said of his experience. “When I started this world cup season and prepared my freestyle, I knew that if I wanted to have a chance, I needed to have a difficult freestyle and today it paid off,”

Wandres said of his routine, to a cheeky response of “just you wait!” from charlotte.

With this only being Hawtins Delicato’s second ever freestyle test, and Charlotte not having competed him since January, the combination showed vast improvement from an unconfident performance on the first night. Apart from a tiny error in the two time changes, Charlotte appeared to be able to ride the horse more positively and give him a much more confident test between the boards:

I’m really happy tonight, yesterday he was nervous and a bit sticky in the arena but he’s 10 and never been in that sort of environment, so after last night I was more prepared for what to expect,”

she said of their second ride in the atmospheric arena.

After a couple of mistakes in the tempi changes, Hans Peter had to settle for third spot:

He felt really good in the warm up so I went into the arena and wanted to go for it. But I felt the heat  affect him and I didn’t have him in front of me and on the hindleg.”

He said of the the inexperienced black stallion,

so it was a bit of surviving in there, but he still did a good job, he’s only 10 years old and he this is his first indoor show.”

It seems that the new Grand Prix format is here to stay for at least another year, and after some minor tweaks to the test and the post-ride interviews it should be better received from the riders. But with the calibre of performance shown again this week, it’s certain that dressage – in whatever format – is certainly here to stay at Olympia.