“I knew anything could happen with Glamourdale” – Lottie Fry adds world freestyle champion title to week’s achievements

Determined from start to finish, 26-year-old Lottie Fry ends her week of a lifetime with a third medal and a second Dressage World Championship title

The 2022 Dressage World Championships can only be described as what dreams are made of for the British team and supporters, but for no rider more so than Lottie Fry who partnered the Van Olst Horses’ Glamourdale, when she not only smashed a personal best but took her second world championship title of the week. She described what the super-special stallion had just achieved as being “out of this world”.

All eyes were on Lottie and ‘Glammy’, the newly crowned individual world champions as they entered the arena – not one combination has attracted as much excitement and interest as this pair. While their new music that promised to finish with a bang, the eclectic mix of classic Queen, Britpop favourites and ending with the national anthem, the test proved to be a real crowd pleaser. Lottie herself admitted she was “literally speechless” about the soundtrack to her test.

But what of the technical elements? Scoring 10s across the board in a clean sweep for the extended canter – where she’d only managed 6/7 judges in her previous tests – the pace proved a highlight. However, the piaffe, passage and half-pass work saw her scores soar.

“I picked the lines to show off his incredible extended canter but the whole thing was just a highlight,” she continued. “It took us weeks to fit everything in and get it inside the time because I just wanted to do a 10-minute freestyle, but I do think it captured all of his amazing parts. I just had the best feeling in there I ever had. I had so much fun and he had so much fun.”

“I didn’t dare to imagine it but I knew anything could happen with Glamourdale, Lottie finished. “Hopefully this is just the beginning, this is his first major championship.

Gareth Hughes and Classic Briolinca came away from the Grand Prix Special with a strong seventh, less than three-tenths of a percentage point behind teammate, Charlotte Dujardin. Today’s competition saw them finish in fifth. However, having performed the best pirouettes of the world championships so far, Gareth proved he meant business and came into today’s competition all guns blazing.

The degree of difficulty was up at 10 from the start and the intensity continued throughout. Smashing his previous personal best at this level of 80.125% by almost 4%, Gareth was rewarded with a massive 84.043% to stand at the top of the leader board at the half-way point of the competition.

“That was a lot of fun and it really suited her. That’s actually the first time I’ve ridden through the floorplan,” Gareth said of his test. “I’ve been watching and watching and watching it on my phone but until you ride to it you don’t really know how it feels.”

Like a fine wine, the 16-year-old Dutch Warmblood just gets better with age and Gareth is hopeful they’ll still have another couple of years together. His feelings towards the mare were evident, him admitting he was smiling through parts of his test and afterwards made it clear how much the mare “amazes” him – and he finished with a line that says everything you need to know about his relationship with the mare.

“What makes a Grand Prix horse? A horse that lets you train it to Grand Prix,” he said. “But what makes a great Grand Prix horse? A horse with heart, and she’s got that in abundance.”

Coming in tenth for Great Britain were Charlotte Dujardin and the super-exciting Imhotep. After a Grand Prix Special during which Charlotte likened riding the nine-year-old Everdale son to driving a go-kart – despite the end result for the sometimes-tense but overall promising test being a respectable sixth-placed 77.52% – nobody was quite sure what to expect from the combination’s first-ever freestyle test.

Well, if anyone could hold together a fiery and exuberant ride on a horse who lives out 24/7 to try to dissipate some energy, it’s Charlotte, and that she did. Starting with piaffe, passage and half-pass work into a powerful extension, ‘Pete’s’ first-ever Grand Prix Freestyle certainly did not disappoint.

“I’m so happy with Pete,” Charlotte said following her test. “That is the first time I’ve done a [Freestyle] on him so for him to go out there tonight and deliver that test I was absolutely delighted.

“He’s done absolutely amazing this week I couldn’t ask for any more from him. He has taken everything in his stride, and he’s gone beyond anything I could have expected. I am absolutely thrilled.

“I love the horse to bits. He’s going to be a superstar.”

Final scores

1. Great Britain’s Lottie Fry and Glaamourdale – 90.654%
2. Denmark’s Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour and Vamos Amigos – 89.411%
3. Netherlands’ Dinja van Liera and Hermes – 86.900%
4. Germany’s Benjamin Werndl and Famoso OLD – 85.893%
5. Great Britain’s Gareth Hughes and Classic Briolinca – 84.043%
6. USA’s Adrienne Lyle and Salvino – 83.704%
7. Sweden’s Patrik Kittel and Touchdown – 83.679%
8. Denmark’s Daniel Bachmann Andersen and Marshall-Bell – 83.464%
9. Gernany’s Isabell Weth and DSP Quantaz – 83.339%
10. Great Britain’s Charlotte Dujardin and Imhotep – 83.132%
11. Sweden’s Therese Nilshagen and Dante Weltino OLD – 83.046%
12. Denmark’s Carina Cassøe Krüth and Heiline’s Danciera – 82.143%
13. Sweden’s Juliette Ramel and Buriel K.H. – 80.682%
14. Spain’s Alejandro Sánchez del Barco and Quincallo de Indalo – 78.386%
15. Netherlands’ Emmelie Scholtens and Indian Rock – 74.589%

Photo credit: Lottie Fry and Glamourdale win two world titles © FEI / Leanjo de Koster