“Dressage is all about harmony: having a relationship with your horse where it has confidence in you so that everything you do together looks effortless and easy, like it’s all happening by magic. But I can tell you now there wasn’t a lot of harmony at the beginning.”
― Charlotte Dujardin, The Girl on the Dancing Horse: Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro
In April I finished The Girl on the Dancing Horse, written by Charlotte Dujardin. This autobiography tells of Charlotte’s beginnings from riding at only 2 years old, the farms and competitions, and the horses she rode. We get a glimpse of her younger years as she won competition after competition, and left school at 16 to pursue the sport.
Get your copy at Trafalgar Square Books
As a kid, she took a few Horse of the Year titles. She did many hunter jumper-type shows but when she found dressage it seemed to click for her. She and I had the same revelation about showing vs dressage (though I’ve really only ever shown a handful of times at schooling shows I’ve seen enough over the years). Dressage feels more fair; you are judged on each movement. In the show world, it is wildly subjective.
“But even before Hez the shine had gone off the showing world for me. Your pony’s way of going often wasn’t taken into consideration, and with the irregularities in the judging I was starting to wonder why I bothered: you’d travel round the country and ride well only to lose out to people who really didn’t deserve to win.”
― Charlotte Dujardin, The Girl on the Dancing Horse: Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro
I enjoyed the part in the book where she taught her 15-hand thoroughbred show pony to passage in a field after watching a Carl Hester DVD.
When Charlotte was 22 she began working for Carl Hester and that gateway led her to the legacy she has built.
In The Girl on The Dancing Horse, you follow Charlotte from the very beginning through 2016 until Velgro (Blueberry) retires. You experience her highs and her lows. I felt myself tearing up on a few sections for her….be it pride or sadness. Her voice comes through and you live it with her.
At times the book is fast-paced and you can’t wait to see what’s next. At other times it gets repetitive. Nearly every competition is slowed down by covering several rider’s scores. As a reader, I found it to be a speed bump but can also step back and appreciate the necessity of highlighting these scores.
At this level, the riders were getting 80s and 90s. I was thrilled and nearly cried when I got a 71 in an INTRO C test! I can’t even imagine competition at this level and if I were in that arena the hairs on my arms would likely be standing up through the whole competition as the riders get better and better.
Final Word:
I’ve only been in the dressage world for a few years at this point after having been trained in hunter/jumper my whole life. I knew who Charlotte Dujardin was already and I’d heard of Velgro but I didn’t know much about the pair. I feel like I am drawn to these biography/autobiography-type books lately. I really love exploring the athletes themselves and learning about their lives, their struggles, and their triumphs. It also gives a glimpse into the sport from an athlete’s perspective. Where the sport has been and the differences/similarities to how the sport is today.
With Charlotte’s book, we did exactly that….we felt her losses and lows and we celebrated her wins. I was a weeping mess as the book concluded with Valegro’s retirement. It was beautiful and poetic. It also shows that even the greats need a moment to recognize how far they have come.
“And yet the weird thing was when I started practicing it again, it felt so easy: in 2012 it had felt incredibly difficult, but with another four years’ worth of experience, it was a breeze for both of us. It didn’t feel hard at all. That was a measure of how far we’d come together.”
― Charlotte Dujardin, The Girl on the Dancing Horse: Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro
I also want to add that I buy most of my horse books from Trafalgar Square Books. I’m excited to say that I am an affiliate with the publisher, and so proud to be. Trafalgar Square embodies the spirit of horsepeople….they ARE horsepeople. The operation is based in an old barn in Vermont and run by only a few people…people you can talk to and meet in person at events. It’s not a big corporate conglomerate, and for that I am grateful. This happens to be one of such books. You can find your copy through my affiliate link here, it’ll let TSB know I sent you!
Girl On The Dancing Horse by Charlotte Dujardin
The Green Horseman 
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