Fame is the European team gold medal-winning ride of Carl Hester and the horse who partnered Carl to the highest score of his entire career to date.
Despite their partnership still being relatively new, Carl told Horse & Hound that “it was love at first ride”.
“Occasionally in your life, you get a horse who you feel just fits you, and Fame fits my personality and my physique,” he said.
“His enthusiasm makes him a dream horse. He doesn’t have any weaknesses – he has a good walk, an amazing extended trot and a super ability to collect for piaffe. He is athletic when it comes to going sideways, he has expressive changes and good, sitting pirouettes.”
Fame’s early years
Fame is sired by Bordeaux, out of Bonaventura (by Rhodium), and was bred by M. Gerritsen in the Netherlands.
While he was presented in the second phase of the 2013 KWPN Stallion Licensing, he was not accepted and was later sold to Joop van Uytert.
Following his acquisition, Fame was trained and competed by Belgian Larissa Pauluis who won a bronze medal with him at the 2014 Belgian Young Horse Championships. In 2015, Larissa and Fame were named the first reserves for the Belgian Team for the World Championships for Young Dressage Horses.
In 2016, Fame transitioned to the ownership of Jenny Linden Urnes of Christinelund Dressage in Sweden. Under Urnes’ ownership, Fame made his international show debut at the small tour level at Herning CDI in October 2018. Competing with Swedish rider Sofie Lexner, Fame achieved a score of 70.00% in the PSG and 66.941% in the inter I.
In 2019, Christinelund Dressage sold Fame to Olympic silver-medallist Fiona Bigwood, who took him to grand prix in 2021, winning at Hunters Equestrian on 73.1%.
“He’s such a fun horse to ride – you ask him and he reacts immediately,” Fiona told Horse & Hound at the time. “I love that hot personality in a horse – the warm-up is all about keeping them calm, but you know that when you go down that last centre line you’ve got all that energy for the piaffe and passage.”
The combination would go on to make their international debut at Zandhoven CDI later that year, scoring 68.31% in the grand prix and 73.38% in the freestyle.
Carl Hester and Fame: “Love at first ride”
Carl and Fiona’s working relationship has always been close – with Fiona debuting Carl’s former rider Hawtins Delicato not long after Fame – and in 2023 Carl and Fame made their first outing together, winning a grand prix class at Hartpury on 76%.
“I’ve known Fame for the last few years as I have been helping Fiona,” Carl told Horse & Hound following their win. “She is very busy with the family and campaigning Daytona Platinum at grand prix, so she thought Fame would suit me and offered me the ride.”
Harpury marked Carl’s return to the competition arena after an absence of almost a year, and seemed to reinvigorate a love – that, if not lost, was perhaps a little strained – for the sport.
“Sometimes, I forget that the reason I started competing in the first place was for sheer enjoyment,” Carl wrote in his Horse & Hound column the week after their first win.
“So many people feel pressured to qualify for things and justify why they ride and spend all that money, but the main reason should be getting out and having fun.
“When I took Fiona Bigwood’s lovely Fame to a local grand prix at Hartpury and had such a fun day, it dawned on me that while we all have sleepless nights before competing, we don’t always need to think about winning or what people think. For me to go to a local show and just be part of a normal competition was tremendous. Fiona, I’m happy to compete Fame any time you like!”
Carl Hester riding Fame at Wellington CDI3*
This auspicious start was followed by wins in the grand prix on 75.89% and the grand prix special on 76.94% at Tolbert CDI in the Netherlands.
“He was the easiest horse I’ve ever travelled abroad,” said Carl’s groom Lucy Scudamore. “He does love attention, but he’s quiet about it – he’s not one to bang the door or scrape the floor, although he does love to clap his lips together in the wash bay, so we can always tell when he is in there. When you take the feed round in the evening he’ll be dancing with excitement, but quietly, at the back of his stable out of sight.”
Two more wins followed at Hickstead CDI, where Carl’s other top ride, the returning En Vogue, won the Premier League at the same venue. Their scores were close – Fame on 76.33% in the grand prix and En Vogue on 75.11% – and throughout the summer there was much debate as to who should be Carl’s ride at the 2023 European Championships.
“I’ll wait and see,” Carl said after Hickstead. “They’re both fun to ride and I wouldn’t mind which I took. It will be a shame to leave the other one at home as they both deserve it.
“I learned at Hickstead that it can be better to let Fame switch off during the five minutes before going into the ring. He has days when he sees and hears everything, but he really feels as though he enjoys everything he does. There’s never a day when you wouldn’t want to get up and ride him.”
Carl with both En Vogue (left) and Fame (right) in the run-up to the 2023 European Dressage Championships
The pair continued competing alongside each other, with Fame’s scores in the grand prix beginning to edge out En Vogue’s at Someford, Wellington and Hartpury.
“I judged them at the Somerford Premier League,” Stephen Clarke said to Horse & Hound. “I could see that he was still building Fame’s confidence in the arena and that there is still so much more to come in the development of his strength and the frame.
“I could see Carl giving the horse confidence throughout the test, without fully putting his foot down yet.”
Carl and Fame scored nines for their passage in a free-flowing test at Hartpury Premier League, with Carl explaining how with more exposure he was beginning to be able to ask more: “Doing lots of shows with him this year and building him up continuously has paid off and he has got his head around it all.
“When I have him relaxed like that he’s a dream to ride. He’s talented but with a talented brain as well and when you put those together it’s so lovely to ride.”
Fame went virtually unbeaten in the build-up to the European Championships, with just Charlotte Dujardin and Imhotep beating them at Wellington CDI in June.
Ultimately, it was his consistently high scores that saw him selected ahead of his stablemate – who went on to have a summer to remember of his own, becoming national champion.
Carl Hester and Fame exit the arena after their grand prix test at the European Dressage Championships 2023.
The European Dressage Championships were a crowning moment for Fame and Carl, with Carl producing a masterclass in the sweltering heat to steer Fame to 78.54% in the grand prix, becoming the overnight leader after day one and helping secure team gold for Britain.
“I absolutely love this horse, I worship him, and I look forward to riding him every day,” Carl said following his test. “He can be both very explosive and quiet – he can go both ways – but he was the perfect mix today. If I never ride another test, that would be a nice note to finish on.”
Arriving with just eight months of experience together, there had been an air of unpredictability going into the grand prix. “Fame was a bit of an unknown in that environment, but what a masterful piece of horsemanship Carl Hester’s grand prix was,” chief selector Judy Harvey said amidst the celebrations. “But what a joy it was to watch the maestro tenderly nurse an insecure horse round and get a brilliant test out of him.”
With the stallion’s confidence continuing to grow, Carl went on to finish fifth in the special and rounded out the championships by achieving the highest score of Carl’s entire career to date, with 85.46% in the freestyle – their first-ever freestyle together in front of a 2,500 sell-out crowd.
“I can feel the trust I have in Fame and he has in me,” said Carl. “I went in there not knowing what he was going to do but I felt I could push a bit more out there. I knew there was more in there during the special but I didn’t want to disturb it, but today there was nothing to lose so I thought I could get stuck in.
“I’m so privileged to have a horse like that at this level.”
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