Denmark’s Team for World Equestrian Games Announced, Led by No. 4 Cathrine Dufour & Cassidy
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July 23, 2018
Denmark’s team for the World Equestrian Games was named Monday, led by the No. 4 ranked combination of Cathrine Dufour and Cassidy and including the American-owned Mane Stream Belstaff ridden by Betina Jæger.
The team for the WEG at Tryon, North Carolina Sept. with the Grand Prix team competition starying Sept. 12 is:
Cathrine Dufour, 26, and Atterupgaards Cassidy, 15-year-old Danish Warmblood gelding
Daniel Bachmann Andersen, 28, and Blue Hors Zack, 14-year-old KWPN stallion
Anders Dahl, 42, and Selten HW, 14-year-old Hanoverian gelding
Betina Jæger, 44, and Mane Stream Belstaff, 11-year-old Hanoverian stallion
The team has a distinctly American flavor–Daniel and Zack are coached by Lars Petersen, the Florida-based rider who was a star for Denmark but is now an American citizen; Selten HW is an American-bred horse that was ridden by Californian Elizabeth Ball to the triple of the five, six and seven year-old national championships before being sold, while Belstaff is owned by American Rowan O’Riley.
And Catherine Haddad-Staller trained Belstaff from 2015 to March, 2018 as well as showed him in his first Grand Prix and gave the horse the prefix, “Mane Stream,” named after one of her favourite charities, an equine-based assisted riding therapy program in New Jersey.
Nathalie zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, a two-time Olympian and four-time World Games competitor who is now the Danish coach, said Denmark is out to be on the team medals podium as well as a combination to make it to the individual medals.
Cathrine and Dufour, that competed at the 2016 Olympcs, a star of the 2017 European Championships and the only Danish combination to make it to the dressage-news.com “80% Club” for that score in a Grand Prix, was the leading Danish combination at the Aachen, Germany Nations Cup last week.
“The goal of WEG is a medal for both team and individually,” said Nathalie. “The United States and Germany are very strong right now, and the U.S. is, of course, at home, but we go hard for medals for Denmark.”
Cathrine and Cassidy were Dressage Champion of Aachen last week, a title for the horse and rider with the highest combined percentage from the CDIO5* Grand Prix, Special and Freestyle.
Since the World Games was created in 1990 as a combined world championships of dressage, driving, endurance, eventing, jumping, reining, vaulting and para equestrian staged once every four years, Denmark has won only a single medal–individual bronze by Andreas Helgstrand on Blue Hors Matine at Aachen, Germany in 2006.
