‘I did feel some nerves today’: Lottie Fry and Glamourdale fly to World Cup victory in Amsterdam

Lottie Fry and Glamourdale continued their return to top form with victory in the World Cup qualifier in Amsterdam presented by Vriendenloterij, scoring an impressive 89.31%.

Olympic individual silver and European bronze medallist Isabell Werth finished second with Wendy de Fontaine and Becky Moody completed the podium with Jagerbomb.

The result mirrored the grand prix podium from the previous day, when Lottie and Isabell were separated by less than a percentage point, setting the scene for a closely fought deciding freestyle.

Drawn first of the final group, Lottie and Glamourdale set the benchmark with their now familiar flying-themed freestyle. The pair delivered a fluent, mistake-free test, earning eights across the board for the early piaffe and passage and a string of 10s for the canter work.

The score proved a formidable target for those still to come, and was Lottie’s highest freestyle mark since her World Cup win in ’s-Hertogenbosch last March.

Watch Lottie Fry and Glamourdale’s winning freestyle at the World Cup qualifier in Amsterdam in the video below

“I’m usually not nervous before competitions, but today I did feel some nerves after my test, knowing Isabell and Becky were still to ride,” Lottie said. “But a strong field like this only gives me extra motivation. It really makes you raise your game.

“I trust Glamourdale completely, and if the crowd gets loud for the combination before us, he has no problem walking into an arena like this.”

On the 15-year-old stallion’s return to form – underlined by successive grand prix scores of 80% or higher for the first time since 2022 – Lottie added: “We’re really finding the right balance now between all that power and enough relaxation.”

Becky and Jagerbomb followed with their upbeat Beatles freestyle, reverting to the music after a brief foray into Christmas tunes at London International. The complex floorplan allows little let-up, but Jagerbomb’s mistake-free test earned 85.31%.

Last to go was Isabell, who made a late decision to bring Wendy de Fontaine instead of DSP Quantaz. The pair opened with high-scoring piaffe-passage work, but a costly error in the two-time changes proved decisive, knocking their score back to 87.58%.

“After Frankfurt and Basel, I felt that Wendy and I still had a few things to fine-tune, so I decided to ride her here,” explained Isabell. “We’ve learned a lot in the last two shows, and I can really feel her gaining more strength and muscle. The canter work was already better today than last time, but we’re not quite there yet.”

Although Lottie took the win, Isabell collected the full 20 World Cup points in Amsterdam, as Lottie is automatically qualified for the final as the defending champion.

Continuing her return to top-level competition, Charlotte Dujardin and Alive And Kicking slipped from fifth in the grand prix (73.04%) to sixth in the freestyle (79.96%), but the inexperienced 12-year-old mare impressed with her polished piaffe work, despite a couple of green mistakes.

• To stay up to date with all the breaking equestrian news throughout the year, subscribe to the Horse & Hound website

You may also be interested in: