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THE GIRL ON THE DANCING HORSE FOR MANY, 32 MAY SEEM YOUNG TO BRING OUT YOUR AUTOBIOGRAPHY. WHAT LIFE EXPERIENCE COULD YOU POSSIBLY HAVE TO SHARE? WELL, WHEN YOU’VE BEEN EUROPEAN, WORLD AND OLYMPIC CHAMPION, HOLD A NUMBER OF WORLD RECORDS AND HAVE LIVED OUT A FAIRYTALE ADVENTURE WITH THE HORSE OF A LIFETIME THEN YOU’LL HAVE PLENTY TO SHARE WITH AN EAGER AUDIENCE.
T
he Girl on the Dancing Horse plots Charlotte Dujardin’s career career to-date and the story of her journey with Valegro in her own words. We chose a small extract for you to enjoy and would recommend you read it in full. It’s frank, it’s honest and it’s Charlotte.
CHAPTER 9 Each year the ‘Horses and Dreams’ show at Hagen has a theme, and in 2012 the theme was Britain, in honour of the London Olympics. During LEFT: EARLY DAYS FOR TOP HAT AND TAILS.
18 // Issue 3 2018 // BRITISH DRESSAGE
one of the prize-givings, the music from The Great Escape was playing in the background. ‘That would be really good music to use for your London Freestyle,’ Ian said to me – and that’s how it all began. I’m probably more picky than some riders about their music, but I don’t want to ride to anything that I don’t like or that I feel doesn’t do my horse justice. Everybody’s got their own personal preference, but goo u i i tte to the ty e of horse you’ve got, and because Blueberry was so powerful, I knew I wanted something dramatic as well as something that told a story. Tom Hunt had come and recorded me riding so he could work on Blueberry’s
previous music – having seen his footfalls, he could then wor on n ing rhyth th t matched. Having music that e tly t hor e rti ul r movements is what makes for the best Freestyles, and that’s Tom’s specialty. Even so he’d go away and do something, send it back to me, and some bits of it I’d like and some bits I’d hate. He must have wanted to pull his h ir out the r t few ti e we worked together, because he’d get halfway through and I’d tell him to start again. It was the same with my music for London. ‘I need more e nition in the i e o and I really want to hear the i eren e etween y e ten e trot and my normal trot. Oh, and