Читать книгу Four Legs Move My Soul - Isabell Werth - Страница 9

After Isabell had ridden the horse called Gigolo for the first time, she told him in spirit: Well, my friend, you will have to make a bit of an effort here, or else it will never happen between us.

Today, Isabell may find it difficult to imagine what would have become of her if Gigolo had not been on his best behavior that day. But, there was no danger it would not happen: Gigolo always gave her his very best.

She had already tried another horse at the same facility in Warendorf, Germany, shortly before her first ride on Gigolo. The horse’s name was Whiskytime; he was a talented giant that she liked immediately. Gigolo was younger than Whiskytime, only six years old, and he had a blaze like a blurred watercolor. Isabell only got on him to avoid accusations that she had not considered all her options. She was supposed to decide on one of the available horses at the farm.

And now, there she was on Gigolo, with this “nothingness of a neck” in front of her.

Beyond his withers, it went downhill for about eight inches, then a narrow, surprisingly long neck protruded upward, without any muscle. It felt as if I was sitting on the edge of a launch pad. Beautiful Gigolo? Not at all at that point. But then he started trotting, and he was completely different. That’s when I knew: This is it. This is the horse and no other. There are very few horses out there where one second is enough and you just know he is meant to be yours. Gigolo’s first trot step. The moment I first saw Bella Rose. My first look at Belantis. With these horses, it was exactly like this: one second. I rode, Gigolo trotted, and I said to myself, this is unbelievable. The athleticism, the sportiness, the carrying capacity, the impulsion—I had never experienced or felt anything like it.

Isabell was nineteen then. She and Dr. Uwe Schulten-Baumer were visiting the doctor’s son, once the best rider in his father’s stable, who, having pursued his own career in medicine, had less and less time for his horses. Dr. Schulten-Baumer, Jr., had won a silver medal at the World Championships and a European Championship title, but this phase of his life was over, and he wanted to sell one of his horses. He had bought Gigolo as a five-year-old from the Düfer family, who rode the horse in Warendorf at the German Equestrian Federation (FN), the power center of the nation. However, the experts on-site had no idea what they had let go—Gigolo’s talent went unnoticed. One of Germany’s leading dressage experts at the time heard six months after that Dr. Schulten-Baumer had bought the horse for Isabell and even said: “Really? Did it have to be that one, of all horses?”

When Isabell teased the man about this years later, he admitted, “Don’t tell anyone that Gigolo was up for sale in Warendorf and we didn’t see his talent. That is pretty pathetic.”

I could literally feel it in my seat. Dr. Schulten-Baumer only had to look me in the eyes on that fateful day in 1989, and he knew it was the beginning of something big. He asked again if I really was sure. And I beamed at him and said without hesitating, “Yes, I am.” It made me proud that, even back then, he already trusted my instincts so much. And that we easily agreed.

And so it began: Gigolo, the chestnut Hanoverian with the long skinny neck, became the most successful competition horse in the history of modern equestrianism. His medal collection is legendary: Four times Olympic gold, twice silver. Four titles at the World Equestrian Games, eight at European Championships, and four German Championship titles. Gigolo beat the highly decorated Rembrandt, ridden by Germany’s Nicole Uphoff, and put his stamp on an era, which, had international officials had their way, seemed to be reserved for the riders from the Netherlands.

And he shaped Isabell into the rider she would one day become.

I learned from Gigolo what the “ideal” should feel like. He showed me what kind of synergy and interaction is possible with a horse that moves forward with passion, and the level of effortlessness that can be developed, even when performing at maximum difficulty. He taught me what determination and motivation are and that it is possible to ride a Grand Prix—the highest degree of difficulty—as if it were the most natural thing ever. The most difficult work was not really hard for him, because he derived such pleasure from it.

Gigolo’s conformation became more harmonious over the years as his neck muscled up. But all of his life, he was less convincing as a still image than as an athlete in motion. That is what he was, through and through: An athlete. Gigolo preserved his strong character until his last breath. He was intelligent and had a great inner independence—he was never one to cuddle, but at the same time, he was determined to give it his utmost in the dressage ring, together with me. He was always alert, always burning for action, and always seemed to ask: “And? What are we doing next?” He did not have to rely on anyone else but did his own thing, as if it was his mission to take me along for the ride, and not vice versa. This attitude was so prevalent in his younger years that I could hardly channel his energy.

Those who experienced Gigolo, boiling over with energy on the first day of a competition, could hardly believe that he would be able to show a dynamic-yet-relaxed Grand Prix one or two days later. He did not buck, he did not resist the tasks. He just became so hot, so charged up on energy, that he could hardly be controlled.

Gigolo’s eagerness to work and go forward was so overpowering that, at one point, he just didn’t know which leg to move first. It seemed to me as if he was constantly urging me to “get going already”…it was always, “Come on, come on, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go forward!” He was hyper-motivated. Ready to work through and through. Nothing interested him but the movements that he was about to perform.

Gigolo still had this spirit well into his twenties. Sometimes he was brought in from the field to have his mane neatened or to have a bath, and he would suddenly start to piaffe right in the aisle. He would look around as if to say: “Let’s go! Start the music, please!”

It only became clear to me after a lot of experiences with other horses just how lucky I was to have had Gigolo. To be able to ride such a forward-thinking horse right at the beginning of my career was incredible. I never had to encourage him. My task was mainly to handle his vivacity without taking the fighting spirit out of him.

It is one of the most important feats of riding dressage: To bring the horse, an animal always ready to flee, into an inner state where he can develop his full potential and yet does not lose his head. Nature plays a role here: When in a state of excitement, a horse performs the same types of movements that were eventually cultivated by the sport of dressage. That is the reason why, in best of cases, a world-class Grand Prix test resembles the metaphorical “ride on a razor blade.” Gigolo and his rider were really well suited for each other—two offensive players, both always ready to risk everything.

The days of Gigolo were the times of new beginnings; Isabell did not know setbacks yet. Her career moved forward with rapid speed, and as strong and unclouded as her self-confidence was, she did not think about what might go wrong. She simply shrugged off falls from her young, wild horses and did not think about potential consequences. She did not yet have the responsibility of her own business, nor was she a parent. Back then, she did not think about whether it might be safer to longe an excited, barely controllable horse before riding so he could let off some steam. No…it was simply up, up, and away!

Isabell learned how to handle Gigolo’s personality at shows. It did not work to drill him in an hour of warm up right before her class—he lost his freshness and motivation. It was better to work him in the morning to get some of the freshness out; then, she only warmed him up for half an hour, and he brought all his joy of movement into the dressage ring.

One of my most cherished memories when I think about Gigolo is from the dressage stadium in Aachen. It was pouring and the sand ring was flooded. Deep puddles mirrored the cloudy sky, especially in those places where I had planned to ride my most tricky, most difficult movement during my Freestyle: the transition from extended canter to pirouette. Any other horse would perhaps have tried to avoid the puddles. But Gigolo said, “Yeah!” He was not to be deterred from his moment to perform, and he slammed through the water in canter with such fervor that water splashed everywhere. He did not have to “hold himself together” like some horses might have—he loved it.

Gigolo loved water in every form. He taught all his stall neighbors at home how to dunk their hay into their water first, before munching it in delight. When he was not playing with water, he was constantly active in his stall, tinkering and pottering around. His door had to be secured with a special latch because he was so clever that he managed, again and again, to pry open the old bolt and escape.

When Isabell first found Gigolo and he found her, on that life-changing day in Warendorf, she was far from thinking about success and medals. Her first goals were all about developing him for the sport of dressage. However, it can safely be assumed that Dr. Schulten-Baumer already had the podium in view. He thought big and had always wanted one thing only: major international success. Dr. Schulten-Baumer spared Gigolo, so eager to learn, all the steps that one usually takes with a young horse—all the youngster shows and championships. He was only interested in the High School movements, the maximum level of difficulty that is required at the very top of the international sport.

And Dr. Schulten-Baumer’s plan paid off. Gigolo developed rapidly, competing in his first Grand Prix in 1990, at the age of seven. (Participation in the Grand Prix at that age would not be permitted according to today’s regulations.) In 1991, at the age of eight, he won his first European Championship title. Isabell is particularly proud that he would eventually go to the Olympic Games ten years later, at the “old” age of seventeen, and win gold and silver. It shows that she and Dr. Schulten-Baumer did not wear him out with so much time in a high-performance sport. It also shows how tough Gigolo was. He only had to pause his career due to an injury once in his life.

Isabell’s international career started with a thirteenth place at the European Championships in the Luxembourg resort town of Mondorf-les-Bains in 1989. She was aboard Weingart, her “schoolmaster” who was helping her learn to handle the most difficult tasks. Two years later, with Gigolo, she dashed gaily to their first great success. You could tell, from that moment on, she was a young woman who took on the world. No matter what happened, she would ride like she had nothing to lose.

Back then I was coming from my family farm, with some local competition experience in riding from A to B. And suddenly, I could see the great wide world out there. That was just incredible for me. And that’s exactly how I rode. I have always been competitive, but there was no pressure. I only wanted to show that I knew how to ride. Dr. Schulten-Baumer supported and pushed me and had a lot of fun doing it.

The 1991 European Championships in Donaueschingen, Germany, offered a very special showdown: Two nice, young women smiled at each other—and then fought each other, tooth and nail. Twenty-four-year-old Nicole Uphoff came as the “established one,” having been crowned Olympic Champion in 1988, and World Champion with Rembrandt, the elegant bay horse she now rode, just one year before. And Isabell Werth, age twenty-two, was the parvenu on young Gigolo. Both were quite unusual pictures in dressage, a sport that, until that moment, was considered something of a pastime for old rich folks who liked to fabricate secret intrigues, talk about each other badly behind the scenes, and outdo each other’s presents to officials. A battle between two young up-and-comers? That was new. And full of piquancy: Nicole Uphoff, a former student of Dr. Schulten-Baumer, in a duel with Isabell Werth, his rising star.

Already the team competition, where the Germans won the gold medal (obligatory at the time), could hardly be recognized as being about a “team”: Certainly, there were four pairs competing “together” for a medal. Besides Isabell and Nicole, there was the “mounted policeman,” Klaus Balkenhol, with Goldstern, as well as Sven Rothenberger, aboard Andiamo. Yet, the Grand Prix came to a head as a duel between the two young ladies from the same team, who both looked as if they had just outgrown the “horse-girl” stage but fought for the lead as if they were lieutenants of the cavalry.

In the team competition, Nicole had to deal with the moods of her genius Rembrandt. He spooked at the television cameras, which, as would always be incomprehensible to him, moved when he passed them, and he jumped around skittishly. Isabell, on the other hand, carefree with her forward Gigolo, laid down an almost flawless test—only a little slip in the flying changes disrupted the perfect picture. She beat the champion by the fraction of eight points (back then, results were not converted to a percentage). Thus, the metaphorical gauntlet had been thrown down before the individual competition, taking place in the Grand Prix Special the following day.

Nicole vowed that she would get her nervous gelding under better control. Her expression darkened. She seemed to think about nothing else but her next performance and the question of how to derail Isabell’s attack. Her concentration was apparent in her performance the next day: She regained control, focus, consistency, and elegance. Rembrandt did not have the chance to spook—there were only two tiny incidents—and when she left the ring, smiling, she knew: She had brought out the best in her horse.

As Nicole exited the arena, she met Isabell, who was on deck. “See ya,” Nicole said to the younger woman.

The audience held its breath.

Isabell was sure that she could strike back. It was true that Nicole had taken every risk, had ridden all extensions to the maximum. “Riding forward” is what equestrian experts call it. So Isabell did the same, with no less nerve. She risked everything; the attack was on, and Gigolo fought for her and with her.

And Isabell won that duel, once again. It was her first individual title—European Champion. Meanwhile, Dr. Schulten-Baumer gleamed with the satisfaction that his new student had beaten his former student.

Nobody had anticipated that these two young, determined women in their elegant tailcoats, with their hair in tight buns under shiny top hats, would leave their mark on the competitive dressage world for many years to come. “Tough fights with soft hands”—this was the phrase that applied to the regular duels between Isabell and Nicole. And then, when the era of Rembrandt came to an end, the same was true for Isabell and Dutch rider Anky van Grunsven, with her elegant and highly talented horses, Bonfire and Salinero.

Thus, Isabell quickly learned how to win on the sport’s biggest stage. Behind the scenes, however, traveling on the fancy dressage circuit, Isabell sometimes felt out of place—as if she had been transported into a strange world. The elite society of dressage riders, with a strict allocation of roles, long spoiled by consistent success since the last team defeat at the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972, was ruled and controlled by the great Liselott Linsenhoff. All the pieces of dressage came together at the Schafhof in Kronberg, Germany, the stable of this individual gold-medal winner of the Munich Games. Here, close to Frankfurt, numerous gold medals were aimed for and attained, and nobody questioned the successful system. The training practices of the industrial heiress were formative for the entire German dressage scene. Aachen resident Anton Fischer, a laundromat owner with white curls, served as a long-time Chef d’Equipe—essentially, Liselott’s governor and master of ceremonies.

To everyone’s surprise, it came naturally to Isabell to make her way in this world—her goal-oriented successes with such a talented young horse paved the way for her.

Sometimes, I sat there at an expensive dinner and asked myself, somewhat at a loss, whether to use the cutlery from the inside out with every course or vice versa. All these things that were completely normal to everyone else present—how to stay in fancy hotels, how to deal with domestic staff, how to address people, how to behave at special functions, and how to make conversation—I had to pick up all of it. It was learning by doing. Dr. Schulten-Baumer introduced me “into society” and was by my side when the going got tough. And my, at the time, close friendship with Liselott Linsenhoff’s daughter, Ann Kathrin, whom I had met in Mondorf as a teammate, helped me find my way around. All the while I sensed that not for all the money in the world could this way of life replace the warmth I had known in my parents’ house.

Isabell looked around…and composed herself in preparation to conquer a kingdom of which she was to be the queen very soon.

One year later in 1992, at the Olympic Games in Barcelona, Isabell and Dr. Schulten-Baumer were ready to pounce. Their plan was to spoil things for Nicole Uphoff and Rembrandt for the second time after the Europeans, but their Olympic premiere started off badly. Dr. Schulten-Baumer lost his temper so badly, right in the beginning, that he threatened to turn around and go back home. Coming up to the Games, he had expressed his concern several times that they might arrive and there would be no accreditation for him. “Accreditation” amounted to an ugly plastic card that identified someone as a member of the Olympic family. Without it, a person fell in the category of “absolute nobody.”

The situation worsened when all others received the necessary ID cards, even those people from the German Equestrian Federation who had been declared “owners” of Gigolo or reserve horse Fabienne only to exhaust all possible access authorizations and get extra accreditations. It was only Dr. Schulten-Baumer whom Olympic staff members could not find in their computers. He was justifiably upset. He, of all people, the great “maestro,” and the true owner of the horse said to be the hot favorite—Gigolo. He, who should be subject to the greatest respect in the industry, saw himself pushed back into oblivion.

Dr. Schulten-Baumer took this as a personal affront. He grabbed the barrier that he was not allowed to pass, unlike all the others with him, and threatened: “We are leaving!”

Even though his accreditation was found after some time, a negative tension had already spread. And then the accommodations were problematic. There was one house, an hour outside of Barcelona, where all the German dressage participants lived together: Riders, trainers, officials—a crowd that, naturally, was likely to hate each other in such a tense and uncomfortable situation. Everyone suffered from the heavy heat, especially those who were older. It was so hot in Barcelona that one day somebody actually fried an egg on a seat of the Olympic bleachers. And yet, the riders rode in tailcoats and top hats under the merciless sun.

To make matters worse, Mrs. Linsenhoff had hired a cook from the German Army in Warendorf who served the sweaty folks goulash with noodles in the middle of the day. George Theodorescu, the famous trainer and father of Olympian Monica Theodorescu and who later became the German national coach, commented with the attitude of a sophisticated bon vivant: “I only eat goulash when I am in Hungary. And I am never in Hungary.”

For a moment, laughter relaxed the tense atmosphere. But all thought returned to how German dressage riders or their entourage should prepare for the arena when the most dangerous competition could be found amongst their own ranks…and when they were all forced to live together in a shared space.

Nicole Uphoff was engaged to jumper rider Otto Becker at the time. The fact that Otto was also in Barcelona as part of the Olympic jumping team was everything but an advantage for the couple, as he had to live in different accommodations with his team. Hence, they hardly saw each other. Since I had the only room with a phone, I had to frequently accept Otto’s phone calls, bring in Nicole, and leave my room to give their sweet talk appropriate space.

And even worse: Dr. Schulten-Baumer had to share a bathroom with Nicole Uphoff’s parents, with whom he’d had a falling out years before. Within days, the underlying tensions became so overpowering that they eventually broke, and all of us, together, threw the Honorable Anton Fischer into the pool. You can blame it on cabin fever.

It should be noted that the chicken-hearted Rembrandt and the overachiever Gigolo, whose nerves apparently worried everyone concerned, were as cool as cucumbers compared to the irritated humans in the Catalan villa!

The Grand Prix of the team medal competition saw the next episode of combat between Isabell and Nicole. Monica Theodorescu with Grunox was part of the team this time, alongside Klaus Balkenhol. She had to compete under especially difficult conditions: When she entered the stadium, the thermometer showed 104 degrees Fahrenheit.

Isabell and Nicole had their horses perfectly prepared. Rembrandt’s fragile psyche had been wrapped in bubble wrap for days and just shortly before the performance, his rider “woke him up” with slightly more serious activities. Gigolo’s nerves were also taken into account during the time leading up to competing. Isabell acted according to her own plan.

Ambitious and highly focused, both riders performed their tests, and neither of them blew it. Isabell even allowed herself to smile provocatively at the judges as she passed them on the short side. “So?” she seemed to say. “Do you dare to place me in front of the great Nicole again, like you did last year?”

Not this time. Nicole’s lead only amounted to six points—a tiny fraction.

That the Germans won team gold did not surprise anyone, but an even greater cause awaited: the Olympic individual medals.

While Nicole let her Rembrandt shine at what many thought was the height of his career—so much so that the Swiss head judge Wolfgang Niggli claimed the performance brought tears to his eyes—Isabell’s results with Gigolo dropped in the Grand Prix Special, and the Freestyle to music was not yet part of the Olympic program. The performance showed that while Isabell was not lacking the desire and ability to win, she still lacked the experience for such big moments.

Nicole reached the final halt in the heat of the arena with a crimson face. Her groom and fiance Otto Becker had to pour an entire bottle of water over her head as soon as she was out of the saddle. Isabell and Gigolo, on the other hand, were boiling over mentally. This manifested itself as mistakes in the ring. Many very atypical slipups happened. Gigolo got muddled in the flying changes, a pirouette failed…they “screwed up everything,” according to Isabell. She had been flying high, participating in the Olympics at age twenty-three on her only-nine-year-old horse, team-gold-medal-winner in her first attempt with a brilliant performance—the world seemed to stand wide open for Isabell and Gigolo, the shooting stars of dressage. But then they did not shine as much during the finale as they could have, and, at first, the silver medal she won did not seem to be any comfort to Isabell.

The young German rider took away a new experience from Barcelona, which would be useful for coming shows and championships: She already knew how to win. She still had to learn how to lose. The magic of the first year had ended, and she was no longer walking the tightrope with a laugh—she had unexpectedly fallen off. To remain at the top, where the ride for gold medals took place, she needed more than easygoing overconfidence.

I definitely learned the hard way. I would argue now that we were completely overambitious. I had to learn first what I needed to ride my tests just as optimally under pressure and that I must always meet the performance standards.

Isabell’s defeat in the Barcelona duel with Nicole upset her extremely. Not so much because she could not satisfy her personal ambition; she was mostly ashamed that she had disappointed Dr. Schulten-Baumer. He had done so much for her, and it had been possible to repeat the coup at the European Championships in Donaueschingen on a much grander scale at the Olympics…but she had messed it up. Isabell was quite hard on herself and came to the decision that she must grow from the experience. Perfection became the goal once and for all. It was as if dark clouds appeared over her, and she decided to work harder than ever.

In Barcelona, the German team won all obtainable medals: gold for the team and individual gold for Nicole, silver for Isabell, and bronze for Klaus Balkenhol with his feisty police horse Goldstern. Anton Fischer delivered the maximum that was possible to the German Equestrian Federation. Warendorf could let the champagne flow.

However, on the international dressage committees, officials were frowning. They racked their brains about how to break up the German dominance. Their reasons were sound: A sport in which the winning nation can be determined ahead of time and where competitors only have to fight internally for rankings is strongly suspected to be a minority program. It becomes the opposite of what the International Olympic Committee means when it talks about “universality.” It is also lacking the excitement that interests people outside the inner circle. The qualitatively superior continuation of a traditional culture is not enough for a sport to survive long-term, next to others such as tennis, cycling, or rugby. The “wow-effect” was missing. If the balance of power during competitions did not change, it was made clear to the Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI), the continued existence of dressage in the Olympic program would, sooner or later, be at stake. As a result, this sport, the foundation of all equestrianism, would collapse into irrelevance.

So what was to be done? The emerging Dutch riders offered some competition but still needed a bit of propulsive power from the outside to be ready to attack the Germans. The entire sport had to be modernized, with possibly more latitude in the scoring system. A solution was found: a Freestyle to music.

Audiences wanted to see something like that, especially the non-horsey folk in front of the television: Beautiful horses “dancing” to saucy tunes, a little bit like pairs figure skating, with one partner in fur and the other in tails. Show and entertainment. For the traditionalists, music was thought to be unnecessary background noise in the dressage ring. This quiet sport, enjoyed by insiders in the early morning hours—where the jingling of bridles, the snorting of horses, and the chirping of birds in the trees was all you could hear—had turned into an ear-piercing opera or a disco. But, now the audience was able to tap its feet to the beat of the music, which was easier than noting petty comments about a not-perfectly-cadenced canter in the program. The Freestyle represented one step out into the world but also away from reliable scoring criteria based on a classical code of values: Performance with the aim to do the horse as much justice as possible and to maintain his health and long life. In retrospect, though, there is no doubt that with the implementation of the Freestyle and by riding on the wave of Dutch fan enthusiasm, the FEI ensured the survival of the Olympic dressage program and opened it to a lot more publicity worldwide.

Dr. Schulten-Baumer and I did not argue against the changes outright. However, we were already afraid that medals would be awarded for just the Freestyle, without incorporating the scoring of the “classical” classes. Similar to what it is like in the Olympic individual ranking today, where you start again at zero after the team competition. After all, for the first time, the Freestyle opened the doors for non-equestrian criteria, such as artistic expression, choreography, and music. The clear comparison of athletic performance was blurred by effects—the components of technical difficulties have not yet been objectified by a transparent basic score, even today. In addition, the Freestyle made it possible to highlight the horse’s strengths through repeated movements and a clever positioning of these movements in the arena, and to hide weaknesses, or even make them disappear behind the atmosphere created by the music.

The result: Those who could handle music, atmosphere, and creative choreography now had a chance to position themselves against the dominant German dressage riders who had been, so far, untouchable in the saddle. And that is exactly what happened. More and more emphasis was placed on the Freestyle, and the Dutch riders, with Anky van Grunsven in the lead, waged a longstanding, resourceful, but also bitter attack against the competition from the country next door. They dragged more and more judges onto their side. The Dutch, one of the strongest equestrian nations in any case, developed into Freestyle specialists, mainly within the World Cup, an event championed by Dutch dressage promoter Joep Bartels.

This meant that, from now on, Isabell not only had to be better than her competition, she also had to be so strong that the judges could not get past her, despite their tendency to want to break up old hierarchies.

These new duels, now between Isabell and Anky, two strong-willed riders—both highly talented, determined, and ready for anything—became symbolic of an entire era. These two, who grew as riders with each other’s mutual competition, who each took a deep breath before entering the arena, who loaded up on adrenaline, and who gave each other nothing. These two, who goaded each other, who gained more brilliance every time they rode, ultimately became bitter rivals.

I had to try to notch up my performance in order to compare to Anky, in order to be back in front. I had to be particularly creative.

The result of Isabell’s strategic considerations was a Freestyle the world had not seen before. This Freestyle’s premiere took place at the European Championships in Mondorf in 1995, the place where she had her international debut six years earlier. The music played along lightly, playfully, similar to how Gigolo was supposed to be on his feet (as the result of hard work): “Just a Gigolo,” combined with “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” This Freestyle was an unprecedented sensation. The highlight of the performance actually deserved to go down in dressage history as the “Isabell Werth Triple.” Never before had a rider shown such a series of difficult movements with her horse: Isabell rode in canter with full extension through the diagonal, to a certain point, where a switch flipped for Gigolo. Instead of pushing forward with impulsion, he, all of a sudden, had to shorten significantly, bringing his hind legs far under his body to perform one-and-a-half pirouettes on his hind legs. This required absolute body control, so that the rhythm of the canter movement was never interrupted. It was like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole in the sport of riding. As if Usain Bolt, after a one-hundred meter sprint, had to keep running on the spot, without stopping his movement, and juggle balls at the same time.

And that was not all. Flying changes immediately followed the pirouettes, first every two strides and then tempi changes every stride. This did not just require strength and body control from the horse, but also enormous focus. Imagine Usain Bolt again, finished with his sprint and his juggling trick, now moving off into a tango. Would Bolt have been able to do it? Gigolo, the perfect athlete and acrobat was, and eventually, with practice, he was able to replicate it very casually. He gave such challenges more than his all. Just like his rider.

When the audience in Mondorf saw Isabell’s Freestyle, some actually sat with their mouths open in amazement. The leading Swedish judge at the time, Eric Lette, pulled out maximum marks and could hardly compose himself. The element of surprise had upstaged all politics. Isabell had parried the Dutch attack for the time being.

The crowd had armed themselves with “Oranje” (the nickname for national sports teams from the Netherlands) hats, jackets, and flags—Dutch colors—as well as a large dose of fanaticism. The attempt had begun to turn the “posh sport of dressage” into a sideshow of German-Dutch rivalry that, traditionally, was enacted in the soccer stadium.

There was a simple reason that Isabell did not have to suffer more from the Dutch front at the Olympic Games in Atlanta one year later. You see, the German team was mainly preoccupied with itself. First, Nicole Uphoff enforced her right to compete as the defending Olympic Champion with the help of a preliminary injunction and followed the team with Rembrandt, who was already seventeen years old. It turned out that the genius bay horse was no longer fit enough for the demands of the arena, and she had to withdraw before the finale, and before the vets did it for her. In addition, there was unease within the team. Martin Schaudt took Durgo to Atlanta, a highly gifted horse with a traumatic past. His previous owners had been unable to manage him and he’d been taken to the slaughterhouse at the age of five, avoiding the “skinner” only because of a mistake. Durgo remained a difficult horse, which, ultimately, was a lucky break for Schaudt. Nobody wanted to buy the talented mover from him, so he inevitably turned into a championship rider himself! But he was the “new kid,” an outsider without a lobby, and he was considered a longshot. So, right up until the last moment, traveling reserve rider Nadine Capellmann tried to replace him and make it onto the team herself. But it was to no avail.

The constant comparison put the young man and his tricky horse under immense performance pressure before they even rode for scores. Schaudt felt picked on, sat on a tack box, and whined that he wanted to go home to the Alps. And all of this happened even though he and Nadine generally got along well and later even dated for a while. Isabell tried to observe these developments and their implications from a distance.

For me, talking with Monica Theodorescu over a glass of beer on the porch of our hotel every night was highly relaxing and entertaining at the same time.

Thus, domestic bliss went out the window once again among the Germans, who had decided to cohabitate once more, despite the stressful and unhappy experiences of Barcelona. This time, they took up lodgings on a farm. Balkenhol was part of the team once again. But even though he was wearing his police uniform, he could not install order.

Cabin fever was predestined to set in again, and the then seventy-two-year-old Chef d’Equipe Anton Fischer was, once again, its victim. He desperately tried to calm down his crew. They, however, released bugs in his room, drank his champagne, and refilled the bottles with water. In Atlanta, there was hardly a break to focus on one’s own performance. But this time, Isabell was not to be flustered. She knew she must remain composed. It was obvious that any tension in her transferred to Gigolo. He did not have a clue what everyone was so upset about, but he tended to be borderline hysteric every now and then. Therefore, Dr. Schulten-Baumer and Isabell rented rooms in a motel close to the horse park entrance for the duration of the competition and did their own thing.

By now, Gigolo had reached the peak of his potential. He was thirteen years old and had been around the block. He performed the movements effortlessly, his body was still full of spring and elasticity, and he was full of energy in his very best moments. He was also at his prettiest. His neck appeared round, now equipped with firm muscles. Nothing prevented him from fully developing his power; he was at his best physical state. His training had, more and more, enabled him to use his own body optimally. His flexibility, carriage, and balance were worthy of a top human gymnast. Experts might even say that such a horse, fully working through his body with optimally molded musculature, could find the ideal peak of physical expression.

And of course, Gigolo had also developed mentally. He now understood exactly when it counted most, which is when he always gave it one hundred percent.

And yet, the entire Atlanta adventure started off similar to Barcelona.

Isabell and Gigolo turned in a fantastic Grand Prix for the team, earning the Germans the expected gold medal once again. But then their Grand Prix Special was full of mistakes. Isabell lost her lead to Anky van Grunsven on the bay gelding Bonfire, giving all of the Netherlands new hope. Had the time finally come? Would the “Oranje” be able to wrench individual gold away from the Germans? There was a good chance, after all, as only the Dutch specialty was still to be ridden—the Freestyle, specifically included in the program to strengthen the Dutch and to make the dominant Germans vulnerable.

The riders had two days off before the finale; two days where Isabell ran around with big question marks in her eyes. What now? She dreaded the psychological effect the results so far would likely have on the five judges. They had seen it clearly: The favorite was struggling. This could change their inner perspective. They would wait for and watch for Isabell’s mistakes in the Freestyle and might even see just how they would juggle decisive points to make way for a sensation and finally award the gold medal to Anky.

I found Bonfire fascinating. He might not have been the ultimate beauty, but his movement was spectacular. He had extreme shoulder freedom. And he was an incredibly honest, athletic horse: He had a lot to offer—besides the walk, maybe—and he did not have to be kept in such a state of tension as Anky’s future horse, Salinero. Those two were real opponents for Gigolo and myself. And he helped shape an era.

Isabell and Dr. Schulten-Baumer went into tunnel-vision mode. In Atlanta, only the two of them and Gigolo existed. And when the day finally came, only one thing was important:

Attack.

I said to myself, We will fight and turn everything around. And it worked. You have these moments when you enter the arena and you are carried by the atmosphere. You feel that something very special is happening around you. And that Freestyle, in those Games, it carried me—everything was perfect, from A to Z. The stadium was full, the atmosphere electrifying, and I suddenly started to enjoy every second of it.

Isabell’s astounding performance in Atlanta can still be watched online. There was no moment in her program when one could breathe; one highlight followed another. Down the centerline, the Freestyle began with a highly difficult movement, the passage, immediately followed by the piaffe, and, during the piaffe, Gigolo turned into a pirouette. It was a movement as rich as a three-tier cake. Naturally, the canter work also included the Isabell Werth Triple. It was an extravaganza from beginning to end, and all the elements were executed perfectly, seamlessly. A golden Freestyle. What else?

After Isabell had saluted and left the arena through a lane of enthusiastically applauding people, after Gigolo had received the obligatory sugar cube from Dr. Schulten-Baumer, after Isabell had dismounted and was surrounded by people, only then did she react, as if from far away. And after she had finally stepped up on the podium during the prize-giving ceremony, after she had received the gold medal, when the German national anthem was playing, then she started to cry. Entire streams, rivers of tears—she could not hold back.

All the pressure of previous years and days dispersed with those tears. I still struggled with the disappointment that I could not deliver the triumph that Dr. Schulten-Baumer had longed for four years earlier. And now, I had made up for this failure. Our great dream of winning an individual Olympic gold medal had come true! The goal had been accomplished. What a relief! I had been riding for Dr. Schulten-Baumer for ten years, and I felt I had finally proven worthy of the role that he had in mind for me. I cried and cried; I cried the awful tension away, the exhausting days, the daily stress of practicing perfection.

And with every tear, something else seemed to become ever more tangible: that the pain of the next failure was already at the doorstep of the grand triumph Isabell was just now celebrating on the podium in Atlanta. The bond and the harmony that had prevailed between her and Dr. Schulten-Baumer during the past days also gave her an inkling of the potential frustration to come. And, of course, she knew even during the moment of her greatest success that the Dutch would not give up. Their weakness, not to be able to demonstrate their team’s potential to its fullest during championships, distorted the picture. Someday, as much was certain, they would succeed. But Isabell and Gigolo would make sure they fought in vain for a long time. They had to be patient until the very last act of the drama.

The animosities between teams became more and more disturbing; aggression clouded championships. It reached a point where the aggression would have been too much in a football game, let alone in the conservative world of dressage competition. There was a time when Isabell went to pick up her detailed result sheets at the show office after her win at the 1997 European Championships in Verden, Germany, but they were missing. Every rider had a right to these result sheets before scores became available digitally. Isabell’s missing results reappeared in a Dutch equestrian journal, annotated with paranoid comments about the scandalously and allegedly “biased” scoring. Isabell was then subjected to boos from the crowd at Dutch competitions for the rest of the year. Agitated fans shouted questions about the “German judging conspiracy.” She was made aware of any small weakness when it was highlighted by the press in an overblown fashion: Gigolo had started to occasionally wiggle with his hind leg in the piaffe. He was swishing his tail during the test. Petitions against individual members of the ground jury were collected.

Isabell may love competitive opposition, but she needs a harmonic social environment and found these experiences very unpleasant. They took the joy out of her beloved sport. She complained that she now had to justify every good performance. She became more and more thin-skinned, while inwardly clenching her fist at the same time.

Isabell’s morale hit rock bottom during the 1998 World Equestrian Games in Rome. Isabell’s usual smile disappeared, and Anky van Grunsven’s face froze in contempt. Asked about Isabell’s scores, the Dutch rider said snarkily, “I really don’t care, but it is bad for the sport.”

The tension that both riders were under was appalling. Their coaches positioned themselves on either sideline of the dressage ring; just their looks meant business. The two men also came across as a clash of cultures: On the one hand, there was the conservative Dr. Schulten-Baumer, no longer so young, in a suit and tie. On the other hand, there was Sjef Janssen, a former cyclist with a blonde rockstar hairdo, whom Anky was to marry later in Las Vegas.

Busloads of Dutch fans poured into the stadium and stirred up opinion against their favorite’s German rival. And indeed: When Anky’s score was announced after her Freestyle, Isabell had withdrawn to the barn to not have to witness the hatred in person. She knew, when boos and hisses echoed across to where she stood with the horses, out of the spotlight, that she had become the new World Champion. It was a poisoned victory, though, as she had to defend herself against nasty allegations from now on. From a nationalist standpoint, this might have been the darkest day in dressage sport ever. Even when Isabell and Gigolo entered the arena for the victory ceremony, they were exposed to humiliating hoots and slurs. Her sport had always been a question of mind over matter for her, but now it took a turn for the worse. It took all her willpower to be able to even feel a little bit pleased about her success.

I have always been driven by the competition, the positive fight for the best performance. I find that fascinating, and I get a thrill out of it—to be on par with the best in the world. But during that time competing against Anky, everything was so heated up and nationalistic. It seemed as if I had to fight against a wall of orange in every arena. I even heard the word “Nazi” on more than one occasion.

When Isabell won a Freestyle over Bonfire at the show in Geneva with Amaretto, the young horse who was to be Gigolo’s successor, things got out of hand. Anky lost her composure in the foyer of the press conference and snapped at Isabell. It became clear to Isabell that Anky believed Isabell had only won because she called up the judges regularly and worked to influence them.

“What do you want from me?” Isabell asked. Anky just huffed.

The truth was, while Isabell was now supposed to justify her success all the time, Anky was also under immense pressure as the figurehead of Dutch paranoia. So much for “horse-girl idyll”…the tension got to both of them. This was no longer about having fun.

Isabell’s aim was to not be drawn into a bad movie by Anky’s fan club, entitled: “Two Drama Queens in Tails.” That night, the Swiss show jumper Willi Melliger, who passed away in 2018, came to Isabell and said something to her that sounded a lot like Clint Eastwood, and which she recalls clearly to this day: “Punish your enemies through victories.”

Willi Melliger’s advice connected me even more to Gigolo, the horse that gave me his all and carried me to my triumph. I owed it to him to defend his honor against any allegations.

The truth was, Gigolo was always a better horse than Bonfire with regard to quality. Bonfire was an extremely elegant bay with exceptional potential for the higher movements, specifically passage and piaffe, which are crucial movements in determining whether a horse can become a star or not. But Bonfire had serious problems with the walk. He was lacking class in one of the three basic gaits. His Dutch rider, indeed, managed to compensate for her horse’s major weaknesses with a fireworks display of accentuated movements that wowed the audience and the judges. Gigolo, in the meantime, remained a model example for clean and serious performance. Back then, a considerate debate about dressage fundamentals and the contrast between the two horses might have done the sport good. But it was not possible: Two irreconcilable sides stood opposite each other, and the riders’ relationship only began to relax a little when Gigolo and Bonfire eventually ended their careers.

But that comes later.

It was 1999 when Anky van Grunsven left the German elite behind and became the European Champion in Arnheim, the Netherlands. However, this feat was accomplished without Isabell’s challenge. The German rider followed the competition in jeans and t-shirt from the bleachers, for her situation had rapidly changed. She was no longer invulnerable. On the contrary: She had to realize how swiftly luck can sometimes turn the other way.

I’d often thought it, that unhappy possibility at the back of my mind. It was all going too well. At some point I had to expect the bubble to burst. But I got a tragedy.

First, her next Olympic hope, Amaretto, died painfully, during a severe colic episode.

Then Gigolo hurt himself.

Isabell did not quit without a fight and started in Arnheim with her reserve horse, Antony. But when he had a fever before the Freestyle, she had to withdraw. Just to be on the safe side, the organizers prepared new music to play during the awards presentation: the Dutch national anthem.

Isabell, her European Championship title lost, sighed and expressed the hope that, surely, her bad luck had to be over. A little bit of dark humor rang in her words, since Gigolo stood in his stall with a tendon injury, and no one knew if he was to ever fully recover at sixteen years old.

And the worst thing? Secretly, she was consumed by feelings of guilt.

The question of whether I could have prevented Gigolo’s injury, or at least the full extent of it, tormented me. I saw the images of the show in Aachen go by in my mind, again and again, of this fatal Saturday in June 1999, when I tacked up Gigolo for the Grand Prix Special. I clearly felt that something was wrong during the warm-up, and I said to Dr. Schulten-Baumer, who stood on the sideline of the warm-up ring: “Something is not right.” But he refused to accept this. “You always have an excuse,” he complained to me. “It’s because your hand is not quiet, just ride correctly for once.” So, I sucked it up and entered the arena, rode the customary loop around the ring, and once again, I had the feeling that Gigolo had taken a wrong step somehow. But I did not follow my gut feeling. Instead, as usual, I did what Dr. Schulten-Baumer told me to do.

During the test, Gigolo’s conditioned worsened. We had closed our eyes before the truth out of sheer ambition. I had too willingly obeyed to walk the wrong route. I will forever blame myself that I did not object more strongly in that moment and have it my way. I am responsible. I am the reason Gigolo’s initial injury got worse and the consequences became severe.

Gigolo moved through the difficult test with his injury, and people with a sharp eye saw that he was lame. Out of habit, the judges still saw him in fifth place, even though they should have rung the bell to end such a performance early. Experts, depending on which side they were on, were either horrified, or knowingly nudged each other with their elbows. Journalists worked on wording that represented the shocking situation appropriately. Isabell’s parents were full of sympathy for their daughter.

It was an absolutely shitty feeling. A disaster.

After the test, the veterinarian diagnosed a “beginning lameness” in Gigolo’s front right leg. The leg was swollen and tender. Gigolo, Isabell’s loyal companion, suffered from a suspensory ligament injury. The recovery of such an injury takes a long time, especially if the horse is already sixteen. In the nine years of his exceptional career, Gigolo had not only always been motivated, but he had also been very tough. Aachen was his first serious injury.

Coincidence imposed itself here: It was Gigolo who bound Dr. Schulten-Baumer and his young neighbor together in 1989, the day of their first meeting, to become an unbeatable team. And it was Gigolo who also most clearly represented the ruin of their relationship. The argument in the barn, following the ruinous test, could not be ignored.

I really want to emphasize here that I don’t want to shift the responsibility to Dr. Schulten-Baumer. I sat on Gigolo, and I was the one who had the power to act differently. I was almost thirty years old. The times of blind obedience were definitely over.

Gigolo needed six months to recover. He missed the European Championships, but the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney lay ahead.

It was almost a miracle that Isabell managed to qualify with Gigolo for the top event of her sport once again: A seventeen-year-old horse that had already achieved so much and was coming back from serious injury was still capable of such impressive performances. It seemed as if fate finally treated her kindly again. Originally, poor Amaretto was intended to be brought along for Sydney, but now Gigolo filled in for Isabell once more. An important part of the process, these Games helped finally heal the sore point that the events of Aachen had left behind. The bitter moment when Isabell had not heeded her own instincts, resulting in Gigolo’s injury, had not, in fact, ended his career as so many feared. Gigolo was still in the game—a little bit older and richer, having survived one more painful experience, but, as always, full of drive.

And despite Anky van Grunsven being the hot favorite once again, and even though she had saddled Bonfire one more time, also now seventeen years old, the excitement was not as prominent as it used to be. Some Dutch fans had still packed their Oranje hats for Australia, but the two sides no longer went crazy, attacking each other. Just like the two aging horses, the nationalist sentiments also became a little more mellow.

Gigolo did not reach his best form possible in the Special.

The shoeing was to blame. Since the horses had to start their quarantine weeks before the Games, due to the strict Australian regulations, Gigolo had to have a farrier appointment. He had very thin hoof walls, which is why our farrier at home made sure not to take off a lot of hoof horn. He also made an effort to make the hot shoeing process as short as possible, so as not to lose more unnecessary hoof matter. Our farrier in Sydney didn’t know Gigolo that well. This is by no means an accusation, but it took Gigolo a little while before he was his usual self. Of all the tests, he showed his weakest performance in the Grand Prix Special. The point is, it wasn’t because he and I were suffering under the same kind of pressure we had in Barcelona and Atlanta. And also, most importantly, it wasn’t because his tendon was bothering him; it was a temporary problem that eventually solved itself.

I enjoyed our Freestyle, knowing it was Gigolo’s farewell performance on the big stage. He didn’t make any mistakes, but the fire inside him did not burn as it once did. He was the most beautiful at the height of his career. The sparkle and the charisma of younger years are naturally lost a little with time, and performance becomes more about solidity and experience—which, by the way, doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Gigolo delivered a brilliant performance in Sydney. But I still felt it very clearly: His time had come.

For the first time, the duel between the four-legged seniors fell to Bonfire. Just this once, Anky passed Isabell without controversy. The judges attested Gigolo delivered a flawless performance, but Bonfire was truly dancing. Isabell’s performance was a model example, fit for a book about correct dressage riding, but it was not enough to keep the competition at bay this time. Bonfire sparkled with star-appeal, once more lifting his legs like a circus horse to the Neil Diamond’s hit “Song Sung Blue,” and the judges pulled out a world record score.

On that day, Isabell also had reasons to cry on the winner’s podium—this time with silver around her neck, listening to the Dutch national anthem.

“It wasn’t always easy,” she said after the ceremony as she thought about all the booing she’d had to endure while she was winning gold medals and titles that others felt should have been won by the Dutch riders.

Whether silver or gold, though, her success in Sydney was a small extra, as it settled the matter: Gigolo was now the most successful dressage horse in history. And the great Bonfire could finally leave with a gold medal as both horses went toward their retirement. For the moment, the fierce German-Dutch head-to-head had come to an end—albeit “to be continued.”

Isabell had to, yet again, defy a lack of peace within her own camp in Sydney. The atmosphere on the German team was one of jealousy and animosity. The other female riders on the team—Ulla Salzgeber with Rusty, Nadine Capellmann with Farbenfroh, and Alexandra Simons-de Ridder with Chacomo—did not feel it necessary to watch the rides of their teammates. Anton Fischer, by now seventy-five years old, again tried his best to conciliate, but it is fair to say that never before or after has an Olympic team reacted to winning a team gold medal with such grumpy looks on their faces as the German dressage team did in Sydney.

Those on the outside feared that something terrible had happened, about which nobody wanted to talk, but this was not the case. The cause of the rift was that one rider of the foursome had to give up the individual competition. They were all qualified, but only three riders per nation were allowed to start. Isabell was the strongest rider; Nadine Capellmann, with the colorful chestnut Farbenfroh, was second best. Ulla Salzgeber—not known as the life of the party in any case—prevailed over her rival Alexandra Simons-de Ridder, evoking bitterness on Alexandra’s part as both had, somewhat bewilderingly, achieved the same score. The fact they were both blessed with wonderful horses—one with the large, imposing Rusty, the other one with the impressively passaging Chacomo—was not enough to help either find peace in the process.

In the end, the music stopped playing during Ulla’s Freestyle. The black-haired amazon fought grimly on and came third after Anky and Isabell; the rest of the team acknowledged the result with a bleak nod.

In comparison with the German intra-squad strife, Isabell’s relationship with Anky van Grunsven and her supporters became more relaxed over the years. Initially, both women were unable to separate business from emotions. Anky’s trainer, Sjef Janssen, was able to, though. A scrupulous, clever guy, always fighting for his advantage, he had been hardened through his career in cycling. Ultimately, all three of them worked together in changing the economics of the sport of dressage. They lobbied to help it become more professional and no longer only a hobby for rich people who managed to make a name for themselves in the top level of the sport with the help of their bank account. Neither Isabell nor Anky were from classic, rich dressage families, and they wanted to ensure that people like them were enabled to make an independent living through the sport, more specifically, as riders in the arena and not as assistants of a more privileged sector of society. This meant that, in general, higher prize money had to be allocated at dressage competitions, so that athletes did not only have to spend money, but were also able to win money with a good performance. In fact, the standard of today’s prize money in Europe is not least owed to the initiative of this once hostile trio, which made an attempt to democratize their discipline at least a little. After all, one assumes, at least theoretically, a level playing field for sports that culminate at the Olympic Games. Isabell, Anky, and Sjef began to turn dressage riding from an expensive hobby for a few high-flyers into a professional sport, and they led the way as examples.

Gigolo, who had bent over backward for Isabell for ten years, received a grand goodbye at his retirement celebration. Everything that is proven to make an audience cry on such occasions was summoned at the indoor show in Stuttgart, Germany: A lightshow, then lights off, and the four-legged hero in the ring, treating his fans to one last dance in the arena, his Freestyle music played live by an orchestra. Gigolo showed that he was in great shape; he was not “limping toward retirement” in any way. Thomas Bach, later the president of the International Olympic Committee, gave a a wonderful speech about Isabell’s heroic horse, and wheelbarrows full of oats and carrots were brought in as a symbol that he would now be able to stuff himself as much as his heart pleased!

Isabell was one hundred percent at peace with herself and her horse. No long farewell tour was necessary. It was the end of November, and her journey with this chestnut, so full of character, had come to an end.

The choreography that Isabell developed for Gigolo is still the foundation of her performances today. In those days, her Freestyles included the most difficult movements at all possible within the rules. This has not changed. However, the competition has also learned something, and none of her risky combinations, which once took the international audience’s breath away, is any longer exclusively hers.

Few noticed that the first three Freestyles Isabell rode with Weihegold almost exactly followed the template for Gigolo’s Freestyle, just to new music, which she had had put together for her performance at the World Equestrian Games in Rome. However, never again has a horse been able to finish an exact copy of Gigolo’s choreography and timing. This serves to show the movement this horse was capable of, and the enormous ground coverage he produced with his outstanding gaits and impulsion.

Isabell sometimes dreams that she could start over with this horse, with the knowledge she has today. Imagine what kind of performances they would be capable of!

Back home in Rheinberg, Gigolo was ridden by a girl at the farm for a while. He had to be “trained down.” After a few months, he was brought to Mellendorf, close to Hanover, where Isabell now kept and trained her horses. She sat on the old gentleman’s back a few times after, as at first, they alternated between riding him and turning him out. After two hours of turnout the old campaigner had usually had enough and wanted to come in and work.

But eventually the day came when I brought Gigolo in from the field to ride him, and he had decided that it was time. He was calling to his friends in the field and indicated in no uncertain terms: Take me back outside to my buddies. Gigolo had finally fully retired on his own terms.

When I drove onto the property and saw him standing in the field, together with other retirees, Antony and Fabienne, I was happy. I laughed and said to myself: Just look, twenty gold medals, running around a pasture! What an era in my life. That era came to a close with the end of Gigolo’s career. It was a great feeling.

Gigolo reached the grand old age of twenty-six years. He incurred the worst injury of his life out in his retirement field, when he was about twenty-three. A group of young horses had gone through the fence at night; they probably chased him, and he fell. He was in a miserable condition the next morning and in a great deal of pain, standing only on three legs. It turned out that he had injured a nerve, and from that day until his last, he was troubled by it.

Isabell was by his side, three years later, when she had to say goodbye. She needed a long time to recover from the loss. If the former athletic “wonder horse” had not been provoked by youth, he surely would have made it to thirty.