Thanks to a new video released by Equestrian Vision and Horse & Country TV, you can now enjoy the highlights of Olympic gold-medallist Valegro’s stellar career in one sitting.
In 46 minutes, viewers can be taken on the wonder horse’s journey dating back to 2009 when the channel first filmed Valegro, right through to the moving farewell ceremony at last year’s London International Horse Show at Olympia.
We meet a fresh-faced Charlotte Dujardin riding Blueberry at home in 2010 in the days before Olympic glory, under strict instruction from Carl, as well as watching the pair cantering around the Gloucestershire countryside — a far cry from the high pressure arenas that we became so used to seeing Valegro performing in.
Charting his unrelenting success, the film finishes at Olympia Horse Show in December 2016, when all eyes were on the world’s greatest dressage horse as he prepared to officially retire in the spotlight.
“Not only does he give dressage fans pleasure, and Charlotte and myself and his owners, but he also has people who come and visit him at the yard that people don’t know about — lots of children and lots of unwell people,” reveals Carl. “He makes people cry when they come into the yard! There are a lot of things that we don’t say because we can’t have the whole world descending on our Valegro, but he’s done a lot of things for a lot of people.
“At various stages through his career, we kept saying that he’s going to be a really good horse,” adds Carl. “But it wasn’t until 2011 when we went on that team (for the European Dressage Championships in Rotterdam, where Britain took team gold), that not only did I realise that he was a superstar, but that Charlotte was as well, because of her temperament in her first major championship. And it was what the world needed. It was a new combination, a young girl who had not been there before and a young horse with terribly exciting potential. And I thought, they’re going to go places.”
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A graduate from Durham University, Madeleine joined H&H in 2011 and became Features Editor — producing content across the magazine and website, including the popular inside back cover article ‘The horse that made me’ and the weekly ‘The best of my fun…’ interview. She has written on topics as diverse as hay making and headcams, to hot totty in the horse world and circus horses. Madeleine now works as a freelance feature writer for Country Life, The Telegraph, Horse & Hound, cntraveller.com, The Spectator and The Field, as well as writing obituaries for The Times.
