‘Dad would be down the pub telling everybody’: Sophie Wells returns to the top with an emotional gold
A personal best, two schooling sessions all week and a horse so laid-back Sophie Wells says she has to do less work rather than more – how the unflappable MSJ Gold Standard delivered gold on her worlds debut for Britain’s most decorated para rider
Sophie Wells scored a personal best of 74.95% on MSJ Gold Standard to win grade V gold for Britain at the World Para Dressage Championships.
This win with “Gracie”, a 10-year-old mare owned by Emma Blundell, extends her extraordinary championship medal collection to a new horse within a year of taking on the ride, and Britain’s gold medal haul at these championships to four.
“I’m quite emotional – which is quite rare for me,” said Sophie after hearing she’d won gold, her voice cracking. “I’m over the moon. I think it's just really special – I lost my dad last year... and it's just very special. He would have been thrilled – he’d be down the pub telling everybody.”
Despite Sophie’s record medal haul over her 17-year-long decorated championship career – this was her 41st championship medal by our count – it was her first individual gold since the 2018 worlds in Tryon.
She admitted the battle back to the top has not always felt certain: “I’ve got that perfectionist personality and dressage obviously suits me for that reason,” she said.
“I love the horses, I love riding, I love training them. There’s something in me that loves competing. I didn’t know if I’d get back to the top again, to be honest – I was really dramatic about it. We’ve had a rubbish few years with horses and things happening in life. I get up every morning, and I want to be the best that I can be for my horses.”
Gold Standard seems entirely unbothered by any of it. Sophie laughed when asked whether the mare had exceeded expectations for a first championship.
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“She’s in the stable and looks like she’s been to 20 of them,” she said. “She’s like, ‘What’s the big deal?’ I really don’t understand it, but it’s so nice to have a horse that's so accepting of a new environment.
“She’s a happy soul, which is a bonus in a place like this – it’s not exactly a quiet championship. I took her round the fountain roundabout yesterday, and there were hundreds of people taking pictures of her, and she was just like, ‘Sure, take a picture, but I’m just going to have a snack’.”
Sophie Wells on the World Championships experience
Although Gold Standard has taken her first championships in stride, Sophie admitted – despite her experience – she’s been struggling with nerves, and the waiting in particular.
"I do feel so old, with how many championships I've done, and I still got so nervous today – I was thinking ‘What the hell, it doesn’t get easier’,” she said. “I think it’s because you know what’s coming. I couldn’t go on social media last night, so I was in the gym for about three hours, just stretching and exhausting myself this morning, because I couldn’t do anything else.”
During the test, Gold Standard’s temperament proved to be exactly the asset Sophie needed. The mare was unfazed even when, just before her first medium trot, a massive cheer echoed across from Aachen’s main arena where Germany’s Sophie Hinners and Iron Dames Singclair had just gone clear for Germany in the showjumping.
“I think she’d be quite happy if the cheer was for us!” Sophie said. “She’s a really nice type of horse to have. I wasn’t particularly worried about the atmosphere coming here, which is a nice change – the past couple of horses I’ve had have been a bit more on edge, a bit more tense.
“Gracie is the opposite. I have to do less schooling and keep her fresh and willing – at home she hacks and jumps and does all of that, and she’s done none of that here. I’m just trying to keep it as fun and light-hearted as possible for her.
“I've literally schooled her twice – we’ve been here since Sunday, and it’s Thursday now. I put the jumping saddle on and had a bit of a canter session around the arena familiarisation, but the less you do with her, the better. She’s probably good for about half an hour of schooling – if you drill her, she just switches off. She doesn’t need to be drilled. She finds the work easy; it’s just about keeping her happy.”
On the test itself, Sophie picked out her halt and half-passes as highlights, along with a walk-to-canter transition she felt particularly pleased with: “I felt like in my second [canter] extension I was able to go for a bit more – I didn’t want to ramp it up too much today, because you don’t know if they’re going to get a bit tight going in there, and I didn’t want tight mistakes rather than exciting ones.
“But there weren't really any mistakes at all – my simple changes could have been smoother in the downward transition, but the upward ones were good." Asked whether there was more to come from the pair, she was unequivocal: “Oh, 100% – there's loads more in there for her.”
European podium
Britney de Jong and Caramba NOP of the Netherlands took silver on 73.15%. Germany’s Regine Mispelkamp and Highlander Delight’s completed the podium in bronze on 72.97% – a margin of just 0.18 points separated silver from bronze.
Sophie’s gold completes a clean sweep of individual medals for the British team: Mari Durward-Akhurst (Athene Lindebjerg) won silver and Jemima Green (Fantabulous) and Nicola Naylor (Humberto L) took bronze in their respective grades. So all four British riders have now won individual medals at these championships.
For context, if team scoring were based on today’s individual results alone, Britain, Germany and the Netherlands would be separated by less than two points in the race for the podium behind the USA – though the actual team competition, starting tomorrow (21 August), will be decided by each grade’s dedicated grand prix B test, not today’s scores.
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Oscar joined Horse & Hound in October 2023 and is the magazine’s dressage editor and sports manager, overseeing coverage of equestrian sport. After studying equine science at Myerscough College, he spent four years working for leading dressage rider Emile Faurie, competing at the 2015 National Dressage Championships and travelling with the yard to CDIs including Aachen and Saumur. He holds a master’s degree in Literature from York St John University (2021).