Christopher Hector talks about the dressage world today with Princess Nathalie

Nathalie is a truth teller, one who is never afraid to speak her mind, and at Aachen she remarked to me that she felt the heart had gone out of dressage…

Nathalie and Digby under the eyes of the judges at Aachen

Nathalie said to Christopher:

“I was talking to someone yesterday about the negative press for equestrian sport, and the negative will always catch the headlines, instead of the good parts. I said, yes, but first we have to ask ourselves where has the heart gone in the sport? There are still some that are there with their heart, but the main part have lost their heart, it is only money. That’s sad, really sad.” 

What do we do, we can’t turn the clock back until the days when the minor gentry took charge of the sport… 

“It’s difficult to turn the clock back and we can’t, but I think we really have to sit down and think, what can we do so that we can still have the sport, still ride horses in twenty years time, because I think the sport is in danger. It’s definitely in danger, and if we don’t all get together and think what we can do, to not make this happen. I think it’s a lot the heart, thirty years ago, top riders would never ever ever have sold their best horse. Now it’s a common thing.”

The Herning Euros in 2013, Princess Nathalie retired Digby her medal winner for Denmark…

“You have an up-and-coming Grand Prix horse, it’s sold, you have your top Grand Prix horse and someone offers you millions of Euros, you just sell it. That would never have been the case thirty years ago, even twenty five years ago.” 

There wasn’t that sort of money on offer so they were never tested, Dr Neckermann didn’t need it but if someone had come up to your mentor, Klaus Balkenhol with a couple of million, he might have blinked…

“Maybe, but in the end, his top horse he would never have sold, I don’t think so. We’ll never know.”

But we are getting more and more like showjumping…

“In dressage you need that partnership more, you build a true partnership with your horse, otherwise you can’t perform. You can see it with Dalera and Jessica, they know each other so well, and that partnership you can’t buy with money, you have to earn your partnership together with your horse, and that’s years of training and being together, and caring for your horse.”

Jessica von Bredow-Werndl and her partner, Dalera

“There are riders that are hardly in the stable, they just come, get on, ride, give the horse back to the groom and off they go. That’s not a partnership in my opinion.”

Dalera might almost be unique in that I don’t think she’s the most naturally gifted horse, but as I wrote in my Grand Prix report, she might just be the best horse, because they achieve everything together, it’s not like she’s sitting on some natural superstar like Sönke on Fendi…”

“I think if you put Dalera in a field and didn’t tell anyone what it is, then it’s not the one you would choose.”

And I doubt that anyone else could ride her with the same degree of success…

“That’s because Jessica has built the partnership. I don’t think anyone would have been able to ride Digby like I rode him but that’s because of a unique partnership. Take any of Kyra’s horses, or Cathrine’s horses, that’s just the partnership you build.”

Cathrine Dufour and her now-retired star, Cassidy, a special partnership…

Now we are in danger of losing all of that… 

“I think we are half way to losing all that.”

Daniel Bachmann and Vayron warming up with Nathalie looking on…

The tall blonde boy that you are helping, I have the suspicion that he is the best rider in the world, what makes Daniel such a good rider? 

“He has a lot of feeling, and when he makes a mistake, or a test didn’t go as it should have gone, he will go back and think about what he could have done different. What to change, and with him you can change it in one riding session, one training session, and then he will go in and do what you have worked on. For him, it is never the horse that made the mistake, it’s him who made the mistake and that’s also very unique, especially for such an ambitious boy.”

“He really has the mentality, he has also earned his way up, it’s not gone like up, up, up. He’s had set-backs and horses that have broken. When he came to Blue Hors he took over some horses that had niggly injuries, he had to ride what he had. I think if it hadn’t been for Daniel, Zack would never have been a Grand Prix horse. He just found the way to get the horse on his side, and that is also really unique. When he likes a horse, he will really get it to work for him – they become one unit.”

Daniel and Vayron competing at Aachen 2023                        – Dirk Caremans image

Is Vayron the best horse you’ve seen him ride?

“I think so, definitely. It also suits him, it’s like the hand in a glove.”

I was watching you train him for quite a long time, okay the piaffe is still a work in progress, but there doesn’t seem a chink in that horse’s armour, no-where where he is weak… 

“No there isn’t one. You have to remember the horse is now twelve years old, he got it when it was eleven. The horse had learned some movements, it’s hard to say in a wrong way, but not the way he would have learnt the horse the movement with Daniel. It was really stepping back nearly six steps and starting completely from the beginning. He had to teach the horse, also with its long body, it’s tall and long and it had to find the right balance to be able to carry him, and itself.”

But it looks so amazing..

Daniel and Vayron – Dirk Caremans image 

“This is not the end, we are just at the beginning. At home he does some piaffe passage and you just go, oh my god! But okay it’s still so new that it’s difficult to bring it to the warming up and also to the arena. At home he can already get it and that is the first step.”

Is Paris too soon?

“Nope! Definitely not, and he is not going to Paris just to participate.”

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