Saturday September 11th 2021
Werth just missed the podium
Dalera’s perfect flight to La La Land
Jessica von Bredow-Werndl and Dalera win their third EM gold by a large margin. The Olympic champion impressed at the Grand Prix Freestyle in Hagen. Isabell Werth missed a medal for the first time in six years. The magic of bygone years is missing from her and from consecration gold.
Gold for Jessica von Bredow-Werndl and Dalera in the freestyle, the third at the EM in Hagen aTW, an almost familiar picture. What happened behind it was much more spectacular than the Olympic champion’s title hat-trick: For the first time since 2015, Isabell Werth missed out on a major championship, with the mare Weihegold the most successful rider in history only made fourth place. Okay, the look on her face at the closing lineup seemed to be saying, that was nothing.
“I’ll just collect more of it,” replied Jessica von Bredow-Werndl when asked what her goals were after winning a total of five gold medals since the Olympic days in Tokyo. It was “such an incredible feeling,” said the 35-year-old, that she “couldn’t really put it into words.” Silver and bronze went to Cathrine Dufour (Denmark) with the only ten-year-old Bohemian and the three-time Olympic champion Charlotte Dujardin (Great Britain) with the small, lively chestnut gelding Gio. 14th place went to Helen Langehanenberg (Billerbeck) and Annabelle.
Horse droppings instead of medals for Werth
It is quite conceivable that Werth will also say goodbye to her ever so reliable Weihegold after the European Championship days in the Teutoburg Forest. The 16-year-old mare seemed to run out of strength in the third test within five days. Her piaffes are no longer quite so irresistible, the transitions are no longer quite so clean, and the trot and canter are no longer quite so dynamic.
To make matters worse, Weihegold put a few horse droppings on the square in the first piaffe of all things, which meant a point deduction and obviously brought the mare out of rhythm. Isabell Werth had her hands full getting Weihegold back on track, but the magic of earlier days was missing. Once again, Jessica von Bredow-Werndl and her four-legged dream dancer delivered it. And although Dalera also relieved himself in the middle of a test at the beginning of the first trot traverse, as so often, this did not detract from the smooth running of the freestyle to the sounds of La-La-Land. As the only couple on that day, the two landed beyond the 90 percentage points and were thus well ahead of the rest of the field.
A communication disaster
Helen Langehanenberg and Annabelle had opened the competition for the best 15 couples and delivered a decent round – with the exception of a completely unsuccessful right-wing pirouette, which cost many points. “A communication disaster,” said Langehanenberg: “Annabelle didn’t even begin to know what I wanted.” Nevertheless, she is “actually quite satisfied, there were a lot of good things in it, and our freestyle is really not easy”. The final score of 77.214 and the penultimate place were “not a catastrophe, but I felt I would have expected a little more”.
The next big championship is the World Equestrian Games in August 2022 in Herning, Denmark. A home game for Cathrine Dufour, who should by then also perfect the maximum difficulty that she failed a bit on Saturday: the direct transition from the two to the one substitution.
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