The first horse into the ExCeL arena for the dressage World Cup, supported by Horse & Hound, at the 2022 London International Horse Show (LIHS) was Bellevue, ridden by Britain’s Emile Faurie.
The 11-year-old Oldenburg mare, by Bordeaux x Brentano, is a fairly new equine face on the British grand prix scene. She made her debut with Emile in September at inter II, and has since completed just four grands prix, with scores ranging from 68% to 75%. The pair scored 68.78% for their short grand prix test at LIHS, finishing 10th in Thursday’s class.
“I was extremely happy, and so pleased with her. We had a mistake in the two-time changes, which was annoying – she just had a little look – but she took it all in her stride,” Emile told H&H.
The mare had previously been in the Netherlands, but until this year had not competed since 2016, and has had two foals, who she carried herself. She arrived at Emile’s yard in February, having been recently bought by Diana Rose.
“Her owner is American and spends summers training with me. When she went back to America, she said, ‘Why don’t you keep riding her?’,” said Emile, who took the mare to Kronenberg CDI this month, where they finished fifth in the freestyle, despite the fact Bellevue was “incredibly nervous” at her first international.
“She has an incredible walk and no real weaknesses. She has a really good piaffe and her brain is just so incredibly generous,” said Emile.
Emile Faurie and Bellevue will go through to contest the freestyle tomorrow night (Friday, 16 December), which constitutes the FEI World Cup qualifier at LIHS.
“I’ve taken an old floorplan as she is not experienced so I wanted to keep it simple,” said Emile. “The degree of difficulty is not that high but I just want to give her a good experience here and set her up for next year.”
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