Wellington welcomes back dressage icon Isabell Werth
Germany’s Isabell Werth drew the crowds to the Global Dressage Festival as the world’s number two ranked dressage rider – widely considered the most successful equestrian of all time – returned to Wellington after a 16-year hiatus.
“It’s so nice to get this warm welcome and so many people were really so friendly. They make me really happy…and I didn’t expect that,” she said, after winning the FEI Dressage World Cup Grand Prix with 11-year-old Oldenburg gelding Special Blend with a score of 73.130%.
The test did not pass without incident after the pair negotiated losing a shoe early in the proceedings. “It was in the first extended trot,” said Isabell. “I came around and felt something funny – and then I saw [what had happened] and I thought now I know why.”
Aside from the shoeing mishap, Special Blend’s acclimatization to the showgrounds has been a smooth one. “He’s really honest,” Isabell said. “He traveled safely and is uncomplicated. Things at the show don’t bother him. I rode him early in the evening yesterday and he was a bit tense, but I was really happy this morning when he was so much more relaxed in the arena and in the warm up he was super.”
Eleven horse and rider combinations competed for the Grand Prix in which Ecuador’s Julio Mendoza Loor and Jewel’s Goldstrike finished second on 71.196 % with Canada’s Brittany Fraser-Beaulieu and Jaccardo third on a score of 70.761%.
Isabell, 56, who has 14 Olympic medals – eight of which are gold – and who has competed at the Olympics seven times, takes on the same field of competitors in Friday Night Stars at Global and the World Cup Grand Prix Freestyle. The opportunity to see Isabell in action after so many years, has not been lost on dressage fans in Wellington and the event is sold out. Isabell, who is last to go in the line up with Special Blend 3 and a new Freestyle to reveal, hopes she can find the same form under the floodlights as she did in today’s afternoon sun. “We just won, so I hope I can show in the way that I did today,” she said.
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