Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour

Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour (née Dufour) is a Danish dressage rider who won team gold at the 2022 World Dressage Championships in Herning. She also won double individual silver at the Herning World Championships, riding Vamos Amigos.

Cathrine also won silver and bronze medals at the European Dressage Championships in 2021, with Bohemian, and was ranked second in the world as of July 2022.

Cathrine Dufour and Bohemian in action for Denmark at the European Dressage Championships 2021.

Cathrine Dufour: a prolific youth dressage champion

Cathrine Dufour was born in January 1992. She is not from a horsey family,  and started her equestrian journey aged five in a riding school, where she met her future trainer, Rune Willem.

She began her career in pony ranks, competing at the 2006 pony European Championships on Moonlight, at the age of 14. In 2010, Cathrine and her family purchased the Caprimond son Atterupgaards Cassidy, after spotting him at the the young horse championships in Denmark. Initially, Cathrine who not impressed by him but when his sale to someone else fell through, she finally went to view him.

“I still wasn’t crazy mad about him, but he was good and quick in the gaits and had a good temper,” she says. “Rune said he was a young riders medal horse, and he was right.”

Together, she and Cassidy won 11 European Championship medals in junior and young rider division, before making their senior international debut in the autumn of 2015.

Youth rider to international sensation

Cathrine and Cassidy were selected for the Rio Olympics in 2016, less than a year after making their international grand prix debut. They finished 13th at the 2016 Games.

The following year, Cathrine became an international sensation when she stood beside Germany’s Isabell Werth and Sonke Rothenberger on the European Championship podium, having claimed double individual bronze alongside team silver for Denmark. 

She and Cassidy were among the favourites for the podium ahead of the World Equestrian Games in 2018, but was unable to travel to the USA for the Games as Cassidy was unsound. The pair were back at the top of their game in 2019, however, scoring wins at Herning and Aachen CDI4*s before taking individual bronze in the grand prix special at the European Championships in Rotterdam.

In 2018, Cathrine made her international debut with the Bordeaux gelding Bohemian, who quickly emerged as a top-class grand prix horse alongside Cassidy. With the Tokyo Olympics postponed by a year to 2021, Cathrine opted to campaign Bohemian as her preferred ride for the Games, and the pair spearheaded a highly competitive Danish team in Tokyo.

“He is super cool in the ring and the more audience the better as he’s really brave,” says Cathrine of Bohemian.

The result was bittersweet, with Denmark finishing fourth in the team contest, and Cathrine also settling for fourth individually, but the 11-year-old Bohemian had established himself as a serious championship contender, and just seven weeks later, the pair led Denmark to team bronze at the European Championships in Hagen, Germany, as well as winning individual bronze in the special, and silver in the freestyle.

Going for gold on home soil

Cathrine was selected for the 2022 dressage World Championships, on home soil in Denmark, with the option to ride either Bohemian, now 12, or the 10-year-old Vitalis son Vamos Amigos, who is owned by the British Pidgley family. She chose to ride the latter.

With Vamos Amigos, Cathrine has caused a stir on in the international scene during the first half of 2022, finishing second in the World Cup Final in April, and taking the title of grand champion at CHIO Aachen in July.

“I’m super proud of [Vamos Amigos],” Cathrine has said. “He’s just 10 years old and is doing a super job.”

With the reigning Olympic and European champion, Germany’s Jessica von Bredow-Werndl, ruled out of the World Championships due to pregnancy, Cathrine was among the favourites for gold in Herning.

She and Vamos led the Danish team to gold, winning the grand prix with 81.86%. She then won individual silver in both the grand prix special and freestyle, behind Britain’s Lottie Fry and Glamourdale.

Cathrine runs a training and sales yard in Fredensborg, Denmark, having relocated from her former base in Roskilde in April 2021. While operating from her own base, she is also employed by Helgstrand Dressage to train sales horses.

She runs the business alongside her partner and showjumper Rasmine Laudrup. The pair were married in 2021, after Rasmine proposed directly after the Cathrine’s win at the Danish Grand Prix Championships in 2020. Cathrine has adopted the surname Laudrup-Dufour, and has ridden internationally under her new name as of August 2022.

Cathrine is very active on social media @cathrinedufour, with over 260,000 followers on Instagram.