During the test, Gigolo’s conditioned worsened. We had closed our eyes before the truth out of sheer ambition. I had too willingly obeyed to walk the wrong route. I will forever blame myself that I did not object more strongly in that moment and have it my way. I am responsible. I am the reason Gigolo’s initial injury got worse and the consequences became severe.
Gigolo moved through the difficult test with his injury, and people with a sharp eye saw that he was lame. Out of habit, the judges still saw him in fifth place, even though they should have rung the bell to end such a performance early. Experts, depending on which side they were on, were either horrified, or knowingly nudged each other with their elbows. Journalists worked on wording that represented the shocking situation appropriately. Isabell’s parents were full of sympathy for their daughter.
It was an absolutely shitty feeling. A disaster.
After the test, the veterinarian diagnosed a “beginning lameness” in Gigolo’s front right leg. The leg was swollen and tender. Gigolo, Isabell’s loyal companion, suffered from a suspensory ligament injury. The recovery of such an injury takes a long time, especially if the horse is already sixteen. In the nine years of his exceptional career, Gigolo had not only always been motivated, but he had also been very tough. Aachen was his first serious injury.
Coincidence imposed itself here: It was Gigolo who bound Dr. Schulten-Baumer and his young neighbor together in 1989, the day of their first meeting, to become an unbeatable team. And it was Gigolo who also most clearly represented the ruin of their relationship. The argument in the barn, following the ruinous test, could not be ignored.
I really want to emphasize here that I don’t want to shift the responsibility to Dr. Schulten-Baumer. I sat on Gigolo, and I was the one who had the power to act differently. I was almost thirty years old. The times of blind obedience were definitely over.
Gigolo needed six months to recover. He missed the European Championships, but the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney lay ahead.
It was almost a miracle that Isabell managed to qualify with Gigolo for the top event of her sport once again: A seventeen-year-old horse that had already achieved so much and was coming back from serious injury was still capable of such impressive performances. It seemed as if fate finally treated her kindly again. Originally, poor Amaretto was intended to be brought along for Sydney, but now Gigolo filled in for Isabell once more. An important part of the process, these Games helped finally heal the sore point that the events of Aachen had left behind. The bitter moment when Isabell had not heeded her own instincts, resulting in Gigolo’s injury, had not, in fact, ended his career as so many feared. Gigolo was still in the game—a little bit older and richer, having survived one more painful experience, but, as always, full of drive.
And despite Anky van Grunsven being the hot favorite once again, and even though she had saddled Bonfire one more time, also now seventeen years old, the excitement was not as prominent as it used to be. Some Dutch fans had still packed their Oranje hats for Australia, but the two sides no longer went crazy, attacking each other. Just like the two aging horses, the nationalist sentiments also became a little more mellow.
Gigolo did not reach his best form possible in the Special.
The shoeing was to blame. Since the horses had to start their quarantine weeks before the Games, due to the strict Australian regulations, Gigolo had to have a farrier appointment. He had very thin hoof walls, which is why our farrier at home made sure not to take off a lot of hoof horn. He also made an effort to make the hot shoeing process as short as possible, so as not to lose more unnecessary hoof matter. Our farrier in Sydney didn’t know Gigolo that well. This is by no means an accusation, but it took Gigolo a little while before he was his usual self. Of all the tests, he showed his weakest performance in the Grand Prix Special. The point is, it wasn’t because he and I were suffering under the same kind of pressure we had in Barcelona and Atlanta. And also, most importantly, it wasn’t because his tendon was bothering him; it was a temporary problem that eventually solved itself.
I enjoyed our Freestyle, knowing it was Gigolo’s farewell performance on the big stage. He didn’t make any mistakes, but the fire inside him did not burn as it once did. He was the most beautiful at the height of his career. The sparkle and the charisma of younger years are naturally lost a little with time, and performance becomes more about solidity and experience—which, by the way, doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Gigolo delivered a brilliant performance in Sydney. But I still felt it very clearly: His time had come.
For the first time, the duel between the four-legged seniors fell to Bonfire. Just this once, Anky passed Isabell without controversy. The judges attested Gigolo delivered a flawless performance, but Bonfire was truly dancing. Isabell’s performance was a model example, fit for a book about correct dressage riding, but it was not enough to keep the competition at bay this time. Bonfire sparkled with star-appeal, once more lifting his legs like a circus horse to the Neil Diamond’s hit “Song Sung Blue,” and the judges pulled out a world record score.
On that day, Isabell also had reasons to cry on the winner’s podium—this time with silver around her neck, listening to the Dutch national anthem.
“It wasn’t always easy,” she said after the ceremony as she thought about all the booing she’d had to endure while she was winning gold medals and titles that others felt should have been won by the Dutch riders.
Whether silver or gold, though, her success in Sydney was a small extra, as it settled the matter: Gigolo was now the most successful dressage horse in history. And the great Bonfire could finally leave with a gold medal as both horses went toward their retirement. For the moment, the fierce German-Dutch head-to-head had come to an end—albeit “to be continued.”
Isabell had to, yet again, defy a lack of peace within her own camp in Sydney. The atmosphere on the German team was one of jealousy and animosity. The other female riders on the team—Ulla Salzgeber with Rusty, Nadine Capellmann with Farbenfroh, and Alexandra Simons-de Ridder with Chacomo—did not feel it necessary to watch the rides of their teammates. Anton Fischer, by now seventy-five years old, again tried his best to conciliate, but it is fair to say that never before or after has an Olympic team reacted to winning a team gold medal with such grumpy looks on their faces as the German dressage team did in Sydney.
Those on the outside feared that something terrible had happened, about which nobody wanted to talk, but this was not the case. The cause of the rift was that one rider of the foursome had to give up the individual competition. They were all qualified, but only three riders per nation were allowed to start. Isabell was the strongest rider; Nadine Capellmann, with the colorful chestnut Farbenfroh, was second best. Ulla Salzgeber—not known as the life of the party in any case—prevailed over her rival Alexandra Simons-de Ridder, evoking bitterness on Alexandra’s part as both had, somewhat bewilderingly, achieved the same score. The fact they were both blessed with wonderful horses—one with the large, imposing Rusty, the other one with the impressively passaging Chacomo—was not enough to help either find peace in the process.
In the end, the music stopped playing during Ulla’s Freestyle. The black-haired amazon fought grimly on and came third after Anky and Isabell; the rest of the team acknowledged the result with a bleak nod.
In comparison with the German intra-squad strife, Isabell’s relationship with Anky van Grunsven and her supporters became more relaxed over the years. Initially, both women were unable to separate business from emotions. Anky’s trainer, Sjef Janssen, was able to, though. A scrupulous, clever guy, always fighting for his advantage, he had been hardened through his career in cycling. Ultimately, all three of them worked together in changing the economics of the sport of dressage. They lobbied to help it become more professional and no longer only a hobby for rich people who managed to make a name for themselves in the top level of the sport with the help of their bank account. Neither Isabell nor Anky were from classic, rich dressage families, and they wanted to ensure that people like them were enabled to make an independent living through the sport, more specifically, as riders in the arena and not as assistants