AACHEN, Germany, July 20, 2014– Valegro ridden by Charlotte Dujardin won the CDIO5* Freestyle at the World Equestrian Festival Sunday, but the abence of Totilas brought a sharp rebuke from the organizers of the premier horse show and an apology to spectators. Charlotte, the double Olympic gold medalist from Great Britain, made up for “mistake after mistake” in the Grand Prix three days ago that she said “shocked everybody” with a score of 87.900 per cent in the Freestyle. Helen Langehanenberg and Damon Hill NRW was second 86.025 per cent and Isabell Werth on Bella Rose was third on 85.150 per cent for the first freestyle for the 10-year-old mare that Isabell said she was working out the floor plan as late as Saturday night. The performance by Germany’s most decorated dressage rider brought the crowd to its feet in applause and Isabell to tears as she left the Deutsche Bank stadium that hosted its first dressage competition since an €8 million (US$10.8 million) expansion and was a sellout for five of the six days. Charlotte and the 12-year-old KWPN gelding had mistakes in the tempi changes as did the other two top placed combinations. However, she was happy overall with the ride after the mistake-filled Grand Prix that “I think I made the sport very interesting” and provided her with a wakeup call in preparing for the World Equestrian Games in Normandy, France in five weeks. “Every time I made a mistake,” she said, “I heard the crowd say, ‘ooh.’ It was really hard to pick myself up. It got to me and it think it got to Valegro." “I was a little bit disappointed. I’m not a perfect person. I’m human. I make mistakes.” She was not as confident going into the Grand Prix Special and probably rode too carefully to avoid mistakes. “I know it can be a lot better,” she said. “We came as prepaation for the WEG. We didn’t get him to full fitness as we want him to peak there. It gave me a big wakeup call, definitely made me realize I’ve got to have him a lot fitter.” Helen Langehanenberg said the extraordinary heat wave that hit Aachen this week had no effect on Damon Hill and he was fresh for the Freestyle. Isabell said had not practised the Freestyle because she had focused on the Grand Prix and Special and “didn’t want to confuse Bella with learning too many new things. “I was so impressed with her great concentration,” she said. “I was always hoping but couldn’t expect her to be as consistent and so strong as she was in the three competitions. She never saw such a big arena with so many spectators. The first day she was impressed but she settled down.” The absence of Totilas, the black stallion that returned to the competition arena in May after a two-year absence due to injury to the horse and illness of the rider, Matthias Aexander Rath, was explained as giving the horse a break from the intense competition as one of the four Gation. Frank Kemperman, the Aachen show director, said that in his 20 years running the event he “never thought that one horse that had won the Grand Prix Special the day before would not compete in the Freestyle. “For us,” he said, “it was very disappointing” and the organizers apologized to the public.
