We chat to Charlotte Dujardin to find out more about her exciting novice and elementary winner and what makes her special
Charlotte Dujardin created quite a stir at the NAF Five Star Winter Dressage Championships with the six-year-old mare Times Kismet. She and Kismet won both the Prestige Italia novice gold title and the Equi-Trek elementary gold championship.
The stunning KWPN mare, who is owned by Peter Belshaw, is by Ampere out of the Lord Leatherdale mare Evita. She made her competition debut in 2019 with two four-year-old classes under Katie Bailey, before Charlotte brought her out for the first time at novice level in 2020, securing her regionals qualification. She has also completed a handful of tests at medium and advanced medium so far, with a fantastic score of 83% at medium in May this year.
She and Charlotte won both their regional qualifiers at Prestige Equestrian, and have bettered their scores from regionals here, with 76.72% at elementary and a whopping 79.01% at novice – the highest score of the Winter Dressage Championships so far.
“She is very inexperienced and hasn’t done a lot – this is by far the biggest thing she has done so far,” Charlotte told H&H. “It was such a great experience for her to come here, do the novice and elementary, and for me to see what she was like and put her through her paces. She just delivered.”
Charlotte has very high hopes for Kismet, whom she has previously described as “another Freestyle”, referring to her world bronze medallist Mount St John Freestyle.
“She is fantastic, so scopey and so much ability. She is one I would be hoping [will be ready] for the Paris 2024 Olympics, to have her coming up and behind the others. It’s just so great to have these horses all coming through.”
Among Charlotte’s other exciting young horses are the seven-year-old Grey Flannell mare Odette and the four-year-old Martinez gelding Mon Amour, as well as the eight-year-old Imhotep, with whom she also landed a title at the Winter Dressage Championships.
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