One-horse working rider competes with the elite at European Dressage Championships

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Published In Features
Charlotte Defalque and Botticelli at the European Dressage Championships
Belgium’s Charlotte Defalque and Botticelli in the grand prix at the European Dressage Championships.
(Image credit: Ben Clark)

A working rider with just one horse to compete vied for the top placings on the first day of the grand prix at the European Dressage Championships. Belgium’s Charlotte Defalque works 40 hours a week as a business manager for a consultancy firm, alongside campaigning her grand prix horse Botticelli.

“Really I have two jobs,” says Charlotte. “I have long days and long weeks, working a minimum of 40 hours in consultancy, and doing the horse four days a week – it makes for a very long week! But I only have this horse to ride at the moment.”

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.