‘I can’t slam doors and withhold dinner!’ Top Armenian rider compares horses with husbands

Martha Terry's avatar
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Published In Features
Carrie Schopf and Saumur compete in the European Dressage Championships
The only Armenian dressage rider competing on the international stage, Carrie Schopf, at the European Dressage Championships.
(Image credit: Ben Clark)

Anyone who has ever ridden understands the sense of partnership between human and horse. However, Carrie Schopf, Armenia’s sole international dressage rider, takes it a step further. Competing at the European Dressage Championships with her partner of five years, the chestnut gelding Saumur, Carrie likened their relationship to “more of a marriage”.

After scoring 67% in the grand prix test, Carrie explained that, however much she loves her horse, they hadn’t quite seen eye to eye in the Riesenbeck arena.

Martha Terry
Martha Terry
Features editor

Martha is an experienced journalist who is mad-keen on horses and dogs. Her reporting CV includes the Paris Olympics, European championships, Aachen World Equestrian Festival and World Cup finals. After growing up with assorted liver and white springer spaniels, she enjoyed 14 years with two rescue dogs. Now, her constant companion is Fidget, an extremely energetic and habitually muddy black and white springer. Martha has written on topics as diverse as a top horse’s clone to the best GPS trackers for dogs, as well as equestrian and rural matters for Country Life, The Field, The Times, The Spectator and The Telegraph alongside Horse & Hound.