Four Legs Move My Soul. Isabell Werth

When Frederik first came to the indoor arena, he always wanted to sit on my horse. Not on his cousin’s pony, which was immediately offered to him. No, he wanted up on his mom’s horse—not to ride, but to be close to me. This was often impossible because my horses were too wild. It bothered him, and he complained. To him, it felt as if the horses took away his mother.

      Isabell’s parents no longer take long trips. In the past, they would gather a cheerful crew from the local riding club, get on the bus or plane, and accompany Isabell to her bigger competitions. This started at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona. The president of the local riding club arranged a bus for almost thirty people and a ski rack in the back for provisions (beer was obligatory). The cheering section from the Lower Rhine region crossed into France, laughing and chatting all the way to Spain, alcohol flowing freely. Each day, they trekked to the stadium as a boisterous fan club from their rental home in Barcelona. Four years later, at the Olympic Games in Atlanta, the loyal crew even got a house that was closer to the competition venue than the riders’ lodgings! The Isabell Fan Tour visited Rome, Lipica, Gothenburg, and Jerez de la Frontera, and Isabell’s parents made up for what they missed at home before, when responsibilities like animals needing to be fed and fields needing to be tended required the presence of their farmers.

      Whenever Isabell returned home after a successful outing, a special celebration was in order. The riding club hosted glorious receptions, with more revelry and horses harnessed six-in-hand.

      The Fan Tours only stopped traveling when, at the end of the World Equestrian Games in 2010, the president of the riding club suffered a heart attack. Fortunately, it did not have any serious consequences, and Isabell made sure he was safely transported home from Lexington, Kentucky, where the event was held—paramedics were waiting for him with a stretcher upon his arrival in Germany. The president of the club was part of her extended family, after all.

      Today, the club structure has changed. Many of the younger generation of riders do not know Isabell personally. As a whole, the club life is no longer as central to the members as it once was.

      And now Isabell’s father Heinrich only drives as far as his own fields. He grabs the dogs and his grandson Frederik and hops on his four-wheeler. The acreage that he used to plow is now his playground. Maybe, while zipping about, his thoughts wander back to the time when he was still working the land according to the old traditions…or perhaps even further back, to the era that even he only knows from stories.

      Heinrich Werth’s grandfather bought the property in 1915. Industrialism dislodged him from his farm in Walsum, Germany, on the other side of the river Rhine. There was neither running water nor electricity on the farm—the well pump was operated manually. The family sat together at night by candlelight, but not for very long before their eyes started to close from fatigue. After all, they had to be up and running at four in the morning to milk.

      “It’s true, people back then worked very, very hard,” muses Heinrich, “but they were not stressed.”

      Maybe, as he’s driving around with his grandson, he remembers his childhood years, and the Second World War, when five of his uncles died on the battlefield and hungry townspeople came to the countryside to ask for food. The farm saw it all! American soldiers took up quarters there; you can even see bullet holes in the side of the main house, dating from this time.

      But as Isabell’s mother Brigitte points out, setting her coffee cup down with emphasis, “We will be sitting here all night if we keep talking about the past!”

      2 GIGOLO

      After Isabell had ridden the horse called Gigolo for the first time, she told him in spirit: Well, my friend, you will have to make a bit of an effort here, or else it will never happen between us.

      Today, Isabell may find it difficult to imagine what would have become of her if Gigolo had not been on his best behavior that day. But, there was no danger it would not happen: Gigolo always gave her his very best.

      She had already tried another horse at the same facility in Warendorf, Germany, shortly before her first ride on Gigolo. The horse’s name was Whiskytime; he was a talented giant that she liked immediately. Gigolo was younger than Whiskytime, only six years old, and he had a blaze like a blurred watercolor. Isabell only got on him to avoid accusations that she had not considered all her options. She was supposed to decide on one of the available horses at the farm.

      And now, there she was on Gigolo, with this “nothingness of a neck” in front of her.

       Beyond his withers, it went downhill for about eight inches, then a narrow, surprisingly long neck protruded upward, without any muscle. It felt as if I was sitting on the edge of a launch pad. Beautiful Gigolo? Not at all at that point. But then he started trotting, and he was completely different. That’s when I knew: This is it. This is the horse and no other. There are very few horses out there where one second is enough and you just know he is meant to be yours. Gigolo’s first trot step. The moment I first saw Bella Rose. My first look at Belantis. With these horses, it was exactly like this: one second. I rode, Gigolo trotted, and I said to myself, this is unbelievable. The athleticism, the sportiness, the carrying capacity, the impulsion—I had never experienced or felt anything like it.

      Isabell was nineteen then. She and Dr. Uwe Schulten-Baumer were visiting the doctor’s son, once the best rider in his father’s stable, who, having pursued his own career in medicine, had less and less time for his horses. Dr. Schulten-Baumer, Jr., had won a silver medal at the World Championships and a European Championship title, but this phase of his life was over, and he wanted to sell one of his horses. He had bought Gigolo as a five-year-old from the Düfer family, who rode the horse in Warendorf at the German Equestrian Federation (FN), the power center of the nation. However, the experts on-site had no idea what they had let go—Gigolo’s talent went unnoticed. One of Germany’s leading dressage experts at the time heard six months after that Dr. Schulten-Baumer had bought the horse for Isabell and even said: “Really? Did it have to be that one, of all horses?”

      When Isabell teased the man about this years later, he admitted, “Don’t tell anyone that Gigolo was up for sale in Warendorf and we didn’t see his talent. That is pretty pathetic.”

       I could literally feel it in my seat. Dr. Schulten-Baumer only had to look me in the eyes on that fateful day in 1989, and he knew it was the beginning of something big. He asked again if I really was sure. And I beamed at him and said without hesitating, “Yes, I am.” It made me proud that, even back then, he already trusted my instincts so much. And that we easily agreed.

      And so it began: Gigolo, the chestnut Hanoverian with the long skinny neck, became the most successful competition horse in the history of modern equestrianism. His medal collection is legendary: Four times Olympic gold, twice silver. Four titles at the World Equestrian Games, eight at European Championships, and four German Championship titles. Gigolo beat the highly decorated Rembrandt, ridden by Germany’s Nicole Uphoff, and put his stamp on an era, which, had international officials had their way, seemed to be reserved for the riders from the Netherlands.

      And he shaped Isabell into the rider she would one day become.

       I learned from Gigolo what the “ideal” should feel like. He showed me what kind of synergy and interaction is possible with a horse that moves forward with passion, and the level of effortlessness that can be developed, even when performing at maximum difficulty. He taught me what determination and motivation are and that it is possible to ride a Grand Prix—the highest degree of difficulty—as if it were the most natural thing ever. The most difficult work was not really hard for him, because he derived such pleasure from it.

       Gigolo’s conformation became more harmonious over the years as his neck muscled up. But all of his life, he was less convincing as a still image than as an athlete in motion. That is what he was, through and through: An athlete. Gigolo preserved his strong character until his last breath. He was intelligent and had a great inner independence—he was never one to cuddle, but at the same time, he was determined to give