These were not the Olympic Games the American dressage contingent wanted to have. Yesterday, three-time Olympian Adrienne Lyle put in a solid Grand Prix test aboard a very new mount, Zen Elite Equestrian Center’s KWPN gelding Helix. But the partnership is less than a year old, and Helix had some shortness and tightness in his neck in the stadium’s electric atmosphere. Their score of 72.593% was not high enough to qualify them as individuals for the big finale, the Grand Prix Freestyle.

Unfortunately, Lyle’s performance was actually the high point of dressage competition for the U.S. A promising test by first-time Olympian Marcus Orlob was cut short when his mount, Alice Tarjan’s KWPN mare Jane, was eliminated after blood from a small cut sustained just before she entered the arena began to trickle. With a three-member team format, Team USA suddenly found itself a team no longer.
Olympic Dressage’s Captain America
All remaining hopes got pinned on “Captain America,” six-time Olympian Steffen Peters, and Suppenkasper, the 18.1-hand 2008 KWPN owned by Akiko Yamazaki and Four Winds Farm. The gelding is better known around the world as the “Rave Horse,” who broke the internet after a video of “Mopsie’s” freestyle to club music at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics went viral. Peters and Mopsie won team silver in Tokyo and were hungry for more hardware in Paris. Fans were even hoping for a surprise visit from Snoop Dogg, who’s in Paris doing Olympic commentary for NBCUniversal. The rapper proclaimed the “crip-walking” (his words, not ours!) Mopsie to be his favorite Olympian.
That may not happen now. Mopsie and Peters’ Grand Prix test today was marred by tension. The big gelding clearly didn’t want to walk in the walk tour. And in the final piaffe-passage tour down centerline he turned into something of a pretzel in the piaffe. He either couldn’t or wouldn’t get out of the movement and proceed in passage. Peters had to give him a little boot forward and go into a half-seat to get Mopsie going forward. And that, sadly, was that. The test earned a score of 66.491%.
Gentle Giant Turned Rocket Ship
Mopsie, a gentle giant on the ground, turns into a rocket ship when he goes in the arena. “He was a little too much on fire today,” Peters said. “I thought right after the walk I had him, but he got more and more excited. In the final trot extension, he said, the gelding “saw something on the short side. And that gave him so much energy from behind in that last passage. I knew that could be trouble for the last piaffe.”

It must have been a particularly bitter pill to swallow following the glory of Tokyo 2021 and then what Peters described as an idyllic lead-up to the team’s arrival at the Versailles venue. “We came with such a great atmosphere from the training camp here. We had such great camaraderie, so much humor. I’m not used to being on the team with three guys,” he said with a smile, “so this was incredible. We really had a good time.” He and reserve rider Endel Ots floated down the Seine River in the Paris 2024 opening ceremonies. “If you want to talk about the Olympic spirit, it was clearly there. Unfortunately, the Olympic spirit wasn’t on my side today.”
Peters doesn’t know what’s next for Mopsie, claiming he hasn’t discussed it yet with the horse’s owner, Akiko Yamazaki. Huge, gleaming, and full of vigor, Mopsie certainly doesn’t look as if he’s ready to hang it up.
“He’s 16 years old, and he still has endless energy,” Peters said of his partner. “It’s just amazing.”
von Bredow-Werndl and Laudrup-Dufour Duel for Top Spot
Leading the pack all day was Danish champion Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour on the 2009 Hanoverian mare Freestyle. The mare burst onto the scene at the 2018 FEI World Equestrian Games in North Carolina, winning two bronzes under British rider Charlotte Dujardin. Last October, a company Laudrup-Dufour co-owns with her sponsors bought a half-share in Freestyle to give the Dane the ride, according to Horse & Hound. The pair rode a brilliant Grand Prix test to score 80.792%.
But as the saying goes, they saved the best for last. Reigning Olympic champions Jessica von Bredow-Werndl of Germany on TSF Dalera BB, the very last pair to go in the Grand Prix competition, easily bested Laudrup-Dufour with a score of 82.065%.
Leaving Her Heart in the Arena
Although some in the dressage community would like to see the torch passed to another combination, there is no mistaking “Dalera’s” superb balance and the ease with which she glides from movement to movement without ever losing balance, tempo or energy. She’s somewhat of an oddly built horse. The mare has a high-set, wedge-shaped neck; an interestingly angled croup; and the suggestion of a belly. Still photographs are often not her best look. But in motion she’s all fluid, effortless elegance.

“This is very emotional, because it’s not so many more competitions I’m going to ride with her,” von Bredow-Werndl said of the 2007 Trakehner mare. “She’s always leaving her heart in the arena for me. And especially in such a big atmosphere, her antennae are always with me. When I’m totally focused, she is, as well. I’ve never had this feeling with another horse in my whole life.”
German legend Isabell Werth finished third on her latest wunderkind, 2014 Danish Warmblood mare Wendy, with a score of 79.363%. It’s another of the string of new partnerships we’re seeing at these Olympic Games. Wendy has only been in Werth’s barn since January. They qualified for Paris after winning three major classes at Aachen in Germany earlier this month.
Germany, Denmark, Great Britain Look to Team Competition
Dressage horses now get two days off from competition. The team-medal contenders start in the Grand Prix Special Saturday, August 3, beginning at 10:00 a.m. Paris time. On top going into the team competition are Germany, Denmark and Great Britain, in that order. The slate gets wiped clean, however, as the results of the Special alone will decide the medals.
Then on Sunday, August 4, the top 18 individuals from the Grand Prix will take the stage at 10:00 a.m. Paris time for the Grand Prix Freestyle. This, as with the team competition, will solely determine the medals.
Besides von Bredow-Werndl, Laudrup-Dufour, and Werth, they are (listed in descending order of scores): Charlotte Fry/Glamourdale (GBR), Nanna Skodborg-Merrald/Zepter (DEN), Dinja van Liere/Hermes (NED), Carl Hester/Fame (GBR), Daniel Bachmann Andersen/Vayron (DEN), Isabel Freese/Total Hope OLD (NOR), Frederic Wandres/Bluetooth OLD (GER), Becky Moody/Jagerbomb (GBR), Emmelie Scholtens/Indian Rock (NED), Patrik Kittel/Touchdown (SWE), Victoria Max-Theurer/Abbegglen FH NRW (AUT), Therese Nilshagen/Dante Weltino OLD (SWE), Pauline Basquin/Sertorius De Rima Z (FRA), Emma Kanerva/Greek Air (FIN), and Sandra Sysojeva/Maxima Bella (POL).
For More:
- For more on our coverage of 2024 Paris Olympics, click here.
- To see the Grand Prix team and individual results in the Olympic dressage competition, click here.
- Click here for the individual start orders and times in the Grand Prix Special. And click here for the teams that have qualified to compete in the Grand Prix Special.