EVENT REPORT: Olympia International Horse Show 2015
Olympia 2015 Becomes a
Vintage Year… but Ends
with a Bitter Taste.
Written by Amy Bennett
A
s soon as The London Horse
Show at Olympia starts, that’s
my cue to start celebrating
Christmas, but this year
with the abundance of action I barely
had time to walk through the shops!
As always, the merriment is balanced
out with the sheer amount of work
there is to do throughout the week of
competition, but I wouldn’t miss this
iconic event for the World.
The week started off with two
phenomenal nights of dressage, setting
the scene for the rest of the show to
come. With reigning Olympic, World
and European champion, Charlotte
Dujardin taking the Grand Prix special
on the first night on board Carl Hester’s
14 year old stallion Uthopia, she was
then upstaged by “grandad” Hester
himself the following night in the Kur,
riding Jane De La Mare’s promising
WEG gelding, Nip Tuck – making a PB
for the pair in the process.
“The horse is trying so hard all the
time, last year he found it difficult to go
around the edge let alone do the test, it’s
amazing what a year can do.” Carl said
of the enormous bay who has taken time
to mature into his job. The rider showed
enormous gratitude to his mount, saying
“there is a huge improvement and this
horse has, and continues to teach me
never to say never.”
Carl Hester and ‘Barney’ gave the
maximum capacity crowds an absolute
master-class in technical dressage
to music, just one fumbled canter to
passage transition marred an otherwise
flawless test, to give them a winning
score of 83.75%. This was the first time
the British crowds had seen this new
floor plan and were swept away with the
degree of difficulty shown throughout,
“I think the first five minutes of the test
was on the center line!” President of the
ground jury, Stephen Clarke, quipped.
Once the partnership have had a few
more attempts at this in the ring, we will
only see them improve further as they
aim for Rio.
Image: Charlotte Dujardin riding Uthopia
credit Kit Houghton
January 2016 • Issue 28 • EVERYTHING HORSE MAGAZINE
7