Valegro and Uthopia’s unremarkable beginnings on their way to stardom

In this extract from H&H dressage editor Oscar Williams’ four-page magazine tribute to the horses who reshaped British dressage and gave us so much more than medals, he looks back at how both horses found their way to Carl Hester’s yard...

Uthopia was never meant to be the star of anyone’s yard. Dutch producer Ivonne Lawrence had gone to see a different horse when she spotted a small black three-year-old with a chewed tail watching her from the corner of a barn. He’d been sat on a handful of times, but the moment she rode him, his power was unmistakable.

“I’ve never felt a horse like it,” Ivonne said. “He had so much suspension it was like a trampoline, and cantering him felt like shooting off to the moon.”

Around the same time, a cobby bay colt, who’d go on to be the greatest dressage horse of all time, was not accepted at his KWPN stallion grading. Valegro didn’t match the tall, modern type the judges wanted, but he caught Carl Hester’s eye.

“I was staying with Anne and Gertjan van Olst in the Netherlands, and Anne suggested we go to watch the grading – I’d never experienced one before,” recalls Carl.

“Gertjan had five or six young horses going through, one of which was Valegro. I couldn’t take my eyes off him and his canter. He was quite small – he always had that chunkiness and strength about him, with the head of a duchess and the bottom of a cook.

“He wasn’t accepted, so he went out with the others to be sold. When Anne and I went to see him afterwards, he had such a charming, grown-up look about him.”

Valegro wasn’t expensive, and once he’d been gelded, he arrived at Carl’s yard in Gloucestershire. But he didn’t look like a future champion. He was small, strong and not the type Carl imagined himself riding at grand prix.

“I said to Anne, ‘I’m going to bring him back, and we’ll find him another home,’” Carl explained.

Carl returned Valegro to the Van Olsts on his way to a five-day show in the Netherlands. The plan was to leave him there and move on. But as Carl was driving back towards the UK, Anne advised him to think again.

“So I stopped there again on the way back and Valegro got back on the lorry. He ended up just having a five-day holiday in the Netherlands,” Carl laughed.

How Carl found Uthopia

Whereas Valegro entered Carl’s life almost by accident, Uthopia was never intended for him at all.

Back at the Athens Olympics, Irish event rider Sasha Stewart had joked to Carl that she wanted to be a dressage rider “when I grew up”. So on a later shopping trip to the Netherlands, Carl was looking for a horse for each of them.

“Uthopia was the first horse I saw when I got off the plane in Amsterdam,” Carl said. “I had one quick sit on him and although he was very small, he was so bouncy, energetic and sweet. I thought he’d be perfect for Sasha.

“I rang her and said, ‘As it’s the first one I’ve seen, you can have him, and I’ll find something bigger for me.’ I never did.”

Uthopia headed to Ireland with Sasha. “He threw me off the first day!” she recalled. “He did this extravagant pirouette and I just plopped off like a total beginner. Then he galloped around my property and jumped a huge hedge with all his tack on. I thought, ‘Oh good, he jumps too.’”

Soon after, Sasha became pregnant, so Uthopia went to Carl’s yard in Gloucestershire – and from those unremarkable beginnings, the two horses found themselves side by side, the start of a stablemate partnership that would redefine British dressage.

To read the full four-page tribute to these remarkable horses, plus reactions to their passing from top names in the horse world, pick up a copy of Horse & Hound magazine, in shops from Thursday 11 December

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