Four Legs Move My Soul. Isabell Werth

a feeling of great warmth and gratitude.

      Dr. Schulten-Baumer must have had an eye on the young rider Isabell was becoming for a long time before he, in a sense, won her over to pursue his own ambitions. She and his youngest daughter, Verena, went to the same school for a while. Both girls were members of the same riding club and participated in the German riding examinations together. There is even a photo of the two of them, Isabell on Funny, her pony, and Verena on Wisby, a big veteran schoolmaster. Tiny horse and big, stolid veteran stand next to each other in the picture, like ambassadors from two different equestrian worlds; they had just competed against each other in a class and Isabell, the girl from the metaphorical “ground floor,” had won against Verena, the girl from the floor above.

       Compared to what The Doctor represented to me back then, I felt like a “country girl.” When he and his family arrived at the riding club’s indoor arena on Sunday mornings, I stood curiously on the side and watched how this man, with his equestrian-world panache, trained his oldest daughter, Alexa, who rode his horses at the classiest shows during those years. I saw the level at which he was teaching her and tried to learn everything that he offered, simply by watching. There were rumors in the neighborhood about how their training sessions often took place with raised voices. I would later experience this first-hand—but I also helped initiate those interactions, of course.

      Yelling was the norm in any arena back then. The harsh tone of the cavalry was still part of the general repertoire of riding education in the seventies and eighties. In general, it is quite astonishing how a lot of people were treated back then at their lesson barns and home arenas. They had to pay to basically be hassled like many grooms were—something that would most likely not be tolerated today. The “old-world” view of trainers, who could afford to “have a go” at their students and “dress them down” when they did not follow instructions, still prevailed. The greatest riding masters of all time were understood to have conducted themselves that way; The Doctor’s teachers lashed out at him whenever they felt like it, for example. The times were still true to the motto: “Shut up and ride.” If somebody tried to say that his or her horse was not feeling quite right on a particular day, even if it was mentioned hesitantly, the trainer would, more often than not, tear into the student with scorn.

       The tough life of a “protégé” didn’t scare me. Rather, I perceived it to be an honor if I was yelled at. It showed that somebody was actively paying attention to me. Nothing of the sort would have lessened my unconditional thirst for knowledge and my enthusiasm for horses. On the contrary. I was mesmerized listening to and watching The Doctor, and through him I experienced a completely different quality of riding. And I wanted to be able to do the same thing.

      When she was a teenager, the course that Isabell wanted to use to prepare for her riding badge exam (as they have in Germany) was held by a former soldier—a retired colonel, who directed the children in the arena like soldiers during drills at the army barracks.

      “Ride…march!”

      “Ride..turrrrrn right!”

      Isabell rode Funny’s successor then—a smallish, formerly retired horse called Abendwind (Evening Wind) that her father Heinrich had brought back to work for his daughter. Abendwind, known around the barn as Sammy, was an experienced schoolmaster—the type that some call a “professor,” because he fancies that he is smarter than everyone else. Especially humans.

       When our trainer instructed everyone to pick up the canter—“Ride…canter-march!”—he only had to start saying the syllable, “Can…” and Sammy knew what he was supposed to do. However, he was not suited to go last in a group. When it came his turn to canter, he started to buck, unless he was in the lead. And he did this so reliably that he bucked during the “audition” for the riding course, as soon as the colonel had called out “Can…” Sammy’s bucking was so impressive the old officer kicked us out. Not good enough.

       That’s how my relationship with Dr. Uwe Schulten-Baumer began. His first wife saw what happened with the Colonel and decided I should take lessons from her husband at the same time as the course. And so, I eventually took the exam…with the best dressage score.

      This inner grit and ability to come back and fight when down is innate to every true athlete. The Isabell Werth “punch,” which the entire equestrian world got to know later, began to show up during these early years. The Doctor called her parents and asked whether she could come and ride with him more often. They declined, at first, without informing their daughter about the offer. Their wish for Isabell was to grow up in a harmonious environment and decide for herself about serious training when she turned eighteen.

      But Isabell already knew very well what she wanted.

      Isabell was seventeen in December 1986 when she celebrated New Year’s Eve at the Scheepers Family Farm located in Rheinberg, very close to the seventies-style white villa where Dr. Schulten-Baumer resided with his family.

       That is where the fatal party happened. Where it all began.

      The Doctor was also there. He took the opportunity and talked to Isabell, telling her he was in a bit of a spot as his usual rider was in the hospital and now his horses did not have enough exercise—he was looking for help. Isabell went to his stable the next day. And, when Dr. Schulten-Baumer’s rider had recovered, The Doctor still wanted Isabell to ride for him and asked if she would continue. She had hoped for this offer and agreed immediately.

       It was as if a door opened for me into a world that, thus far, I had only known from television. I listened to him, in awe, deeply impressed, and wide-eyed. I saw him to be a sort of guru, and believed, finally, I had found a teacher worth following.

      It must have already been clear to The Doctor how much potential was in the new relationship with the young rider: He, with his passion, his knowledge, and his financial means, and she, with her unique feel for the inner state of horses, her irrepressible ambition, and her immense courage.

      The first horse he gave her to ride was one that nobody enjoyed.

       Posilippo was a large chestnut that everybody was scared of. He was not really mean, but very sassy, unruly, and he had a buck in him.

      Posilippo was fresh, as horse people say. He soaked up energy and released it in a way that regularly sent riders to the ground. But not Isabell. Back when she had been in the hospital, at seven years old, she had not sworn for no reason to show her sassy gray mare, at the next opportunity, that her rider was not one to give up so easily. She had not been catapulted from her mount, cleaned the dirt off her breeches, and got back in the saddle, sometimes even multiple times during the day, in vain. Allowing fear to take hold was never an option for her. Posilippo? He was business as usual. She thought it normal to ride such a bucking freak. She rode him with total devotion and focus, and the more she committed herself, the more horses The Doctor gave to her to ride, especially, as his children—his son Uwe, a successful doctor, and his daughter Alexa—withdrew more and more from the competition circuit. Isabell was able to learn from their experienced horses. She took over the ride on the mare Fabienne, among others, who was to carry her to the World Cup victory in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1992.

       I was deeply happy and grateful that I was allowed to ride all these horses, and it would have never occurred to me that I was doing The Doctor a favor. I only figured out later that while I may have made my dreams come true with his help, he also realized his dreams with me. The mutual passion for horses and success bound us tightly together over the years.

      Uwe Schulten-Baumer was a self-made man—a farmer’s son, born on January 14, 1926, in Kettwig, Germany. Horses fascinated him from an early age. As a child, he helped to brush, feed, and water the horses at a nearby barn and received his first riding lessons in return. Dr. Schulten-Baumer did his military service with the marines, going to a cadet school where he was allowed to ride the horses at the commander’s headquarters on the weekends. He had to serve for six months during the Second World War and was stationed on the cruiser Nürnberg in the Baltic Sea. He completed a commercial apprenticeship after the war, then went back to complete