Mount St John Freestyle was among the pre-championships favourites for individual glory, and she proved why she is a force to be reckoned with. Her 80.82% score virtually assured Denmark of the team bronze medal, even with several top horses left to go.
Her result put her comfortably at the top of the leaderboard ahead of eventual fifth Carl Hester at that stage, with Isabell Werth, Lottie Fry and Justin Verboomen still to come. And there she stayed.
“Freestyle was amazing, I could feel she was a bit on fire, which I like,” said Cathrine, who was smiling throughout the test. “I wanted to play with her and show the positive sort of riding I really like to present. I wanted to choose positive body language without thinking about [the other riders], just presenting Freestyle where we are now in our training.
“The goal was to do a clean grand prix for the team, and then to show off my highlights with the most quality. Her performance was fantastic, but I could have been a bit more careful so I will try to improve on that for tomorrow [grand prix special].”
While mistakes have blotted a few of the grand prix tests here, Mount St John Freestyle was spot on. Aside from her stunning movement, she goes in such a balanced and soft rhythm, fully focused on Cathrine’s minute aids. They were duly rewarded with soaring scores, including 10s for passage and the final halt and nines across all seven judges for their general impression.
The 16-year-old mare missed Aachen as she “wasn’t feeling right”, but looked in fabulous physical form here as Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour made some tweaks to her regime ahead of the European Dressage Championships.
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“She’s the fittest she’s ever been,” Cathrine said. “It’s been 30ºC training and she’s not had one drop of sweat on her body. She’s 16 but so fit.
“I’ve been comparing [her fitness work] to my running training and trying to make my training a bit longer but light work, sitting on her for an hour but getting ‘soft kilometres’ into her legs.”
The teams that missed out on medals
Belgium came so close to their first championship medal thanks to their newcomer Justin Verboomen, who finished individual third, but Cathrine’s superior performance secured the Danes’ place on the bottom rung of the podium.
Belgium were 3.3% adrift in fourth, with The Netherlands less than 2% behind, boosted by Dinja van Liere’s eyecatching test on the lightly competed Hermes, who were fourth overall.
Justin took some risks with this season’s breakout star, Zonik Plus, to show off his massive power and talent. The stallion showed impressive composure to cope with the buzzy atmosphere in the final stages of this team medal contest and recover from their few small mistakes.
Their highlights – particularly the passage and pirouettes – were truly outstanding, and they earned two 10s, including for the final halt. Were it not for kicking the sideboard in the rein-back and a mistake in the one-times, this could have lifted Belgium above the Danes. Medals are surely on the horizon for this nine-year-old – and that could be in a matter of hours rather than years.
Elimination at the European Dressage Championships
Earlier in this rotation of final team riders, the judge at C, Hans-Christian Matthiesen, rang the bell during Florian Bacher’s test on Fidertraum OLD, and he was eliminated. This was due to be the 16-year-old gelding’s swansong championships.
Florian’s departure means that the Austrian team are eliminated as Victoria Max-Theurer withdrew Abegglen FH NRW before the grand prix competition started.
This was the second elimination of the European Dressage Championships 2025, following Andrew Gould on day one, and there have been two withdrawals.
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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.
