Winter Dressage Championships: Charlotte Dujardin’s rising stars, unmissable action and how to watch
Charlotte Dujardin has two rising stars on the start list for the NAF Five Star Winter Dressage Championships this week (28 June – 2 July).
The reigning Olympic champion brings forward the six-year-old mare Times Kismet, owned by Peter Belshaw, in the Prestige Italia novice gold on Tuesday and Wednesday’s Equi-Trek elementary gold championships.
Charlotte highlighted the mare as “another Freestyle” in the making in an exclusive interview with H&H in January.
“She’s just phenomenal, and I can’t wait to compete her this year and let everyone see her,” she said at the time.
The pair secured their place at Hartpury with victorious performances at Prestige Equestrian’s regional finals in May, topping the leaderboards with scores of 77.9% in the novice and 76.25% in the elementary. Times Kismet, by Ampere, has never scored below 70% and produced a +83% test on her first show contesting medium classes at Hunters Equestrian in May.
Charlotte is entered with the eight-year-old Imhotep (pictured, top) in the Charles Owen advanced medium.
The pair qualified at Prestige Equestrian in May on a score of 76.54%.
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The chestnut gelding, previously campaigned by Sadie Smith and owned by Carl Hester and Coral Ingham, is out of a Vivaldi mare and by dressage stallion Everdale, who is on the list of nominated entries for the Tokyo Olympics with Lottie Fry.
Charlotte and Imhotep are set to enter at A at noon on Thursday.
What else is happening?
Hartpury is host to 40 classes with around 725 riders and close to 900 horses that make up the Winter Dressage Championships and Petplan Area Festival finals.
How can I watch?
Riders are allowed up to five supporters to attend with them, to form a bubble of six, and no spectators outside these competitor bubbles are allowed.
But fans and supporters can follow along from home as Horse & Country TV is livestreaming all the action across the five days (28 June – 2 July).
Mad about music?
There are 10 freestyle championships classes across the week. Monday’s classes were won by Alice Oppenheimer with Headmore Dionysus and Jennifer Johnston Hardman on Dance with me Fürst MFS For dressage to music fans, there are still eight more classes to come.
Tuesday is a bumper day of music, with three back-to-back classes running from 11.35am to 7.17pm. The Nupafeed advanced medium silver kicks off the action, followed by the Magic PSG gold and ending with the PDS Saddles elementary gold.
Wednesday features the Baileys Horse Feeds novice silver, from 1.38pm to 6.05pm. A full afternoon of freestyle action will take place on Thursday, starting with the Superflex Inter I gold at 1.57pm followed by the Spillers medium silver from 4.09pm. The PDS elementary silver and Nupafeed advanced medium gold round off the week, starting at 7.50am Friday morning.
How can I catch up on Monday’s action?
Horse & Hound is covering all the action from Hartpury across the H&H website and print magazine (8 July issue).
Find out what happened on Monday and catch-up with the busiest competitor, the rider who changed career to follow her dream, and the horse who is making waves in all three Olympic disciplines.
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Lucy is an experienced news journalist, reporter and presenter. Since joining the Horse & Hound team in 2015, Lucy has reported from major global sporting events including the Tokyo Paralympic Games and multiple European Championships, as well as Badminton, Burghley and London, to name a few. She has covered current affairs and sports news across the full spectrum of equestrian disciplines and racing, as well as human and equine welfare, industry news and court cases.