Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro are without doubt one of the greatest partnerships ever in competitive dressage. We were lucky enough to share their preparation for their last victory, a Gold Medal at Rio. Back in early 2016, Team Hester took Valegro on a holiday to Jerez in Spain. The sunshine tour was the perfect opportunity to get him match fit – even though they didn’t compete in a single class at the show, just using their time at the Royal School in Jerez for get back in the swing of things – there was even a photo posted on Facebook of Valegro and Charlotte wandering past a bodega (Sherry bar) in Jerez…

How does it feel to be out on the black horse again?

“Ooh, it’s always great to get on Valegro. He’s just one in a million. I think to come here and just do the training has been great, and I think I’ve made a few people’s dreams come true, to meet him and be able to touch him and have a picture with him. Not everybody can get to the big competitions to watch us compete, so the fact that we are here means something… I was here in Jerez when Valegro was eight years old, I did my first international competition here, and to be back with him as a Gold Medallist, the best horse of this time, it is very nice that these people get to see him.”

Olympic Gold for Charlotte and Valegro at home in London in 2012

He looks really well…

“That’s the thing, he’s now been doing this Grand Prix business for six years, and I think a lot of horses lose their enthusiasm and the will to do it, but he just loves it. You really feel that when you ride him. He loves it, and he wants to do it. I always feel that he is trying to please, he never wants to make mistakes, he always wants to do his best.”

“He’s very sensitive. He is not a horse that you could be like, right we are going to do this. He’s such a sensitive horse in the way he thinks, and is off your legs, he is always going, and you are always re-assuring him.”

“He gives me so much confidence as a rider as well, and I give him the confidence, and between the two of us, it’s such a fantastic feeling. He’s like driving the fastest car in the whole world, you put your foot on that accelerator and you have that power. You just go – yes, you touch him, and he comes back, it is such an incredible feeling.”

But you seem so concentrated when you are on the horse…

“I  am concentrated  because I really feel like I absorb the horse. I can read the horse through my body, as soon as I get on, I know how the ride is going to be, and you have to be sensitive to that.  I’m quite lucky that I don’t suffer with nerves, I don’t get competition nerves, it’s good that I can be positive, like come along then, off we go, let’s go and enjoy it…”

“When I go in an arena, and I go down that centre line, I always imagine that I am in my arena at home. I don’t imagine it’s any different, just because those five or seven judges are sitting around it. I just try and do my thing, I try and enjoy it every time.

Sometimes dressage is taken far too seriously and at the end of the day, we do it because we love it, we do it because it is our sport. And that can easily be forgotten, then the pressure becomes too much, the expectation becomes too much, and I think as a rider, it affects you.

Sugar break for Valegro, and the team discuss the working session 

People always say to me, how do you deal with it? I say, I just go in there to enjoy it, and I truly do. I love it. If I didn’t love it, I wouldn’t do it.”

Looking forward to the next big competition? (this interview was before the Rio Games, and as we all know, the fairy tale of Charlotte and Valegro ended as it should…

Individual and Team Gold in London

“I am really really looking forward to it. Going to London was my dream come true, the ultimate dream was to get to London, I didn’t think in a million years that I was going to come away with a Gold Medal, but then I came away with two. This time there’s the expectation that I’ll come home with medals, and I am just going to go there, I’m going to enjoy it, and if it happens, it happens, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. Valegro and I have nothing to prove, we’ve done everything there is to do, and I feel after Rio, I would like to retire him.

Gold at the Euros in Herning in 2013

More Gold at the Euros in Aachen in 2015

“I would like to retire Valegro (from competition) after Rio . I feel I have done everything there is to do with him, I don’t want to keep going and going until he is not the horse he is – I want him to be remembered for the horse he is now.”

“I know that he is truly a special horse and I want everybody to remember him like that. I owe it to him to end on a high.”