Charlotte and Valegro
British Olympic gold medallist Charlotte Dujardin set a new world record at the London International Horse Show last night with a score 84.47% on her London 2012 horse, Valegro in the Grand Prix.
It broke the previous best of 84.08% set by Dutch rider Edward Gal and Totilas at the 2009 European Championships in Windsor.
Charlotte, 27, now holds world records in the Grand Prix and Grand Prix Special, as well as the three Olympic records set at Greenwich Park earlier this year.
Carl and Uthopia
This was Charlotte and Valegro’s first competitive outing since London and she was, understandably, delighted saying she was “Overwhelmed” on Twitter. Her colleague, Carl Hester was in 6th place riding his Olympic mount Uthopia.Australian rider Lyndal Oatley was just out of the placings in 10th place riding Sandro Boy on a score of 69.72%
In the Press Conference after the competition, Carl announced that the World Cup Freestyle at Olympia tonight will be his last ride on Uthopia. So not only will we get an emotional re-run of Charlotte’s Olympic “Land of Hope and Glory” Freestyle but also a sad farewell to the partnership of Carl and Uthopia.
It will be a very big night which you can watch on FEI TV. We’ll be bringing you news from all of the Christmas festivities at Olympia plus the action on the big nights – Tuesday (World Cup Dressage) and Friday (World Cup Showjumping) thanks to Kathy Carter who is in London covering Olympia for us.
Get ready to shed a tear or two .................
