Olympia : Charlotte Dujardin is back to defend her title
Charlotte Dujardin will be back next Monday and Tuesday at the London International horse show which takes place at Olympia in the dressage |FEI world Cup qualifier
The Olympic gold medallist is a regular competitor at Britain’s premier indoor show and is out to secure victory in the competition.
Dujardin is aiming to qualify for the world cup final taking place in Las Vegas next April before attempting to successfully defend her gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics.
Charlotte Dujardin has been speaking to Rupert Bell ahead of the competition,
Olympia is an important event for you, as it is the event that inspired you to become the rider you are today’
yeah absolutely, it was one of my childhood dreams to get to ride at olympia. I remember sitting as a small child in the grandstand watching all these riders thinking ‘ I wish I was there and I wish I was doing that’. To think that I am there and have won there many times, I feel incredibly lucky.
When you are competing there, it is so intimate, there is only 6 or 7 thousand people there, do you feed off that when you are riding there?
There is nowhere else I think that can create that atmosphere that olympia gives you as a rider. It is absolutely incredible to have the crowd there and the fans supporting you. When you are training and warming up out the back it is so quiet there is only you , your horse, your groom, your trainer and a few other riders that are also warming up and then you go through the curtain into that arena and as you go round you literally feel like you can touch the crowd because they are that close to you. It is so intense when you go in, its just an incredible feeling.
As a place to compete, how important is it as a learning curve for your horse, who will hopefully be your olympic horse?
I know already with Mount St John Freestyle that she is already good in that environment, it’s just good to put her in there, she’s not actually competed there but she’s done a demonstration there a couple of years ago so you don’t really know how they are going to deal with it really, some horses can get quite nervous, some horses can get quite shy. She is normally a pretty brave horse so I don’t normally have to worry about her being a bit spooky or anything, I am hoping she will rise to the occasion and really perform.
This is part of the cycle and you’ve got the horse where you want her to be right thinking ahead to July and August which is your ultimate target,
Yes, that is my ultimate goal at the moment, is heading toward Tokyo with her and preparing her for that, all these things are just preparation. She is still a very young inexperienced Grand Prix horse, she is only 10years old and her first year at this level was last year at 9 years old where she went to the World Equestrian Games and we came away with two bronze medals. Now heading toward this year I felt like she could do a bit more and I could push her a bit more, maybe do the World Cup Series, last year I didn’t feel she was ready, so we saved her, this year we have upped it and given her a bit more experience.
I am currently stood next to the old boy Valegro who has given you so much. Is it also from your point saying I am not a one trick pony and I know how good I am and I have a horse who can take me back again to a level you have clearly enjoyed on a world wide scale?
It was quite a hard time after finishing Valegro, I had a year out then I had to pick it up again and to be out there doing it I then loved it and I got that feeling of being back out and enjoying it again. I think with Valegro there was a lot of pressure, expectation and it kind of sometimes took away from the enjoyment of it because I was worried about not fulfilling everybody’s expectations. Coming out with ‘Freestyle’ again, was a new horse. I didn’t have that same feeling, I really feel like she’s a top horse and an exciting horse for the future, for next year especially and not only that I am going to have a couple of horses as a reserve so again more horses coming through to show people I have still been working at home behind the scenes preparing yet again another horse to come through for next year.
Credit to Lloyd Bell for the interview
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