Charlotte posted 83.2% with the 10-year-old Everdale son, just pipping their freestyle score from Imhotep’s last competitive outing, the World Dressage Championships in August 2022.
Riding to her much-loved How to Train your Dragon music, that won her Olympic gold in 2016 with Valegro, Charlotte’s floorplan with “Pete” featured an abundance of piaffe-passage, which is where this bouncy chestnut shines, as well as pirouettes – Charlotte’s speciality.
“Reliving that music gives me goosebumps – it has such emotion attached to it, and so many memories. I thought it was good music to come back to,” said Charlotte.
“That was just the second grand prix freestyle Pete has ever done – the first being at the world championships – and of course we haven’t really practised it. There are so many things I can improve to make more marks but I’m just so happy with how he performed. He was hot enough tonight and he could feel the atmosphere, but it’s great experience for him.”
Charlotte Dujardin: ‘Royal Windsor wasn’t the original plan’
It was a last-minute decision to make a late entry for Royal Windsor, Charlotte explained, and she had initially intended to make her comeback at a national show instead.
“My original plan was to do Somerford Premier League as the first show, as it would be smaller and quieter. Then I got back on and felt amazing, and Carl Hester said to me, ‘You should’ve done Windsor’. So I thought, ‘Well, can I still get into Windsor?’, and here I am,” she laughed.
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Gareth Hughes put in a wonderfully fluid test for 80.51% and second with the experienced Trento B mare Classic Briolinca, scoring plenty of big marks for their superb piaffe-passage. Just the halts dropped the marks for this pair, as Briolinca was too wired to stand still.
Lewis Carrier rode the test of his career to finish third at the highest level senior show he has contested so far. He and the 15-year-old Janssen gelding Diego scored a huge international personal best of 77.4%.
“It was an incredible feeling,” said Lewis, admitting he never thought he’d get such a big score. “About halfway through the test I had a bit of a tear in my eye, when I realised it was going to be good.”
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