Isabell Werth on Being Top of Horse Sport for 35 Years
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By KENNETH J. BRADDICK
WELLINGTON, Florida, Jan. 17, 2024–What has made Isabell Werth the most decorated Olympic equestrian rider in history and on the top rung of the sport for 35 years?
The 54-year-old rider offers some insight into what has led to 12 Olympic medals–seven gold, five silver–earned from the 1992 Games through Tokyo. The total may be higher if she is selected for Germany’s team at Paris this summer.
Isabell, along with German jumper rider Ludger Beerbaum, will give master classes at Helgstrand Dressage at Windsome Farm in Wellington Jan. 29.
DRESSAGE-NEWS: How have you stayed at the top of the sport for such a long time?
ISABELL: “This should be possible, you know. I was too successful to be happy and to be tense. I’m happy to be tense with a young one when I know there’s a potential to really come up to the top five or to the top three, whatever. But if I know I have a horse where I can’t become better than this, when everything goes well then is not the right motivation for me.
“But even at home, for me it’s important also, and this is what I think is the job of the riders, to improve the 6 to 7 (years old), the 7 to 8. You can’t have champions the whole time, but you can improve a good one to a better one and I think this is what I did all my life and maybe this is also the reason why I’m always on a top level. Not always with a champion, but with a horse what is able to go to championship, to compete for a German team or to qualify for the German team and to be on a top international level and this is what is my goal you know and as long as I can fulfill this we will see ourselves at big shows.”
DN: When you were much younger did you think you you need to go to a championship or the Olympics, that you had to do your best but now you’re older you have nothing to prove?
ISABELL: “Yeah, on one hand it’s an advantage because this is true. It’s not that you really want to have to show you can win one big competition. But on the other hand, that’s why I’m here and why I love to compete on a top level. And then when you’re in this competition, of course you want to show the best you can show. But your experience helps you to go through different kinds of ups and downs. During this preparation, for example, with the single horse or with some difficulties. Of course this is the experience what’s very helpful.
“I started a long, long time ago with Weingart. This was a horse who brought me in the scene, in the top level. He was not a champion for an individual title.
“Then Gigolo was the dream horse, a superstar, especially at that time when I was so unexperienced and young he brought me up. Fabienne was not a horse for an individual but she won the World Cup final. But Warum Nicht, Satchmo was a champion. Bella Rose was a champion. El Santo and Don Johnson were horses I could compete on the top level on the German team and you know I was in the top 10 all the time in the ranking. And it’s the same with Quantaz. If we can bring out his potential, he can be one of the top three. But maybe not an individual champion, but one who is really able to be on top, top level.
“I think I improved together with my horses, I developed together with the horse. I never looked for a copy of one of my successful horses. They are all very different. I see a horse and if I’m really inspired and have a vision of a horse I see. And this I would like to make true and come true. I think to be open to improve with the kind of horses, with the sport. The sport is also improving. And try to have an open eye to see also what happens around you, what the other riders do, the other horses. So this is I think the point that I’m not sitting on my chair saying, ‘I’m the greatest and it’s super we do it always like this and that was successful.’ I try to improve myself as well.”
DN: How did you arrive at that point where you would think that way?
ISABELL: “I had some very important horses in my life. I think first was Satchmo. He really taught me to start to think, to open, to realize that it’s not enough to have a super horse and a good rider and a good trainer to become a champion. The difficulties with this horse, it was really for more or less two years where I was really thinking what I have to do, what can I do. There must be a solution. At the end we found it. After that with all horses they got the advantage that I started more to think than maybe a few others and that I started to really be open for a lot of details and that I don’t give up with some problems or with anything. And that was I think important. Also with Bella after three years coming back.
“But it needs also a super team behind you. Madeleine (Winter-Schulze) was behind me. She never said, ‘Oh, now it’s enough. Put her in the field. Enough costs, enough things, enough thoughts, enough sweats, whatever. No. You do what you like to do. Try it. I’m always behind you.’ Same with Satchmo. You know a lot of owners, maybe there’s another rider. I try another rider. Maybe this one can do better. You see so many horses with I don’t know how many riders at the end. And that is also so important that you really can keep on going in your ideas and mind that you’re not scared that the horse is gone one day.”
DN: Did you ever think of giving up on a horse? I remember in Hong Kong for example where Satchmo was obviously not the best behaved.
ISABELL: Yeah, that’s right. That was the only competition where it came back after his operation. And I’m sure it was because there was this stupid big screen at the warm up. I remember that, yeah. I came in the warm up and he was rearing up and it was like a reminder for him, a deja vu. So this is what you can’t explain in the last second, but it happens. We had Rodrigo Pessoa in Atlanta (jumper rider for Brazil), can you remember? The gold medal was there. And the horse stopped. No one had an explanation for that. So this happens. And this we have to accept. It’s hard in that moment. But this is a sport that shows that the horses have their own reactions, not always expected reactions.”
