Charlotte Dujardin’s top ride Imhotep has been sold – in a move Carl Hester has confirmed to H&H had always been planned for after the Paris Olympics.
As reported by Eurodressage this week, 11-year-old gelding Imhotep, owned by Coral Ingham and Carl, had been sold to 28-year-old Austrian rider Diana Porsche.
The news follows the sale of Charlotte’s ride Times Kismet to Jessica von Bredow-Werndl’s partners for Jessica to campaign, but Carl told H&H he wanted it be clear that the sale of “Pete” was always on the cards – and that he and Charlotte were “fully supportive and in agreement”.
“There’s no sinister, awful situation. Between Charlotte, myself and Coral, we always kept Pete for the Olympic Games and he was always going to be sold afterwards,” he said.
“Coral has been the one who has supported us as his owner. We kept him [for Paris] and obviously things didn’t turn out as we hoped. We’d been speaking to Diana in May, she asked if we’d consider selling him, and we said ‘This could be a horse for you’.
“The timing could have been more ideal, especially with Kismet being sold, and those things happen. But this was always going to happen and unfortunately Kismet went first, which made this look a bit more weird – but it’s not weird at all.”
Carl bought Pete (by Everdale and out of Vivaldi mare Della D’ottie) as a youngster from the Netherlands after Henry Boswell sent him a video. He was first competed by Robert Barker, then Sadie Smith, and Charlotte took over the reins in 2020. Charlotte and Pete won four classes at the nationals in 2021, and made their international debut together at Compiegne the following year.
Charlotte and Pete were part of the British team that won silver at the World Championships in Herning in 2022. At the 2023 Europeans they were part of the gold medal-winning team, and won individual silver and two bronze medals, with a +91% in the freestyle. Following the Europeans, Charlotte and Pete won every time they competed; the London International 2023 and the Hagen, Hickstead, and Wellington CDIs this year.
Diana has represented Austria at six young rider championships from 2013 to 2021, and Carl believes she is a good match for Pete.
“Diana is a young rider, she’s talented, and she’s very interested in how we keep Pete and how our lifestyle is for the horses. She studied all the tests he’s done, and I’m really excited for her. He’s only 11, she’s only in her 20s, and hopefully they’ll have a nice long career together,” said Carl.
“She was thrilled and said Charlotte has done such an amazing job with her training of the horse, and what a well-rounded, grounded horse he is. Diana rode him beautifully, it’s a perfect opportunity for us and for her to have a horse to go forward with.
“My biggest concern was how he would be kept, when he was coming from here and how much he likes his field life and hacking, and Diana can do all of that. It was the perfect lifestyle and perfect rider, we get on, so we’re all happy to see how the future goes for her.”
Carl added that “Diana has our blessing”.
“She’s going to keep in touch and we’re going to help her out with anything she might need to know, or training or anything like that,” he said.
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