Denoix PCH

Denoix PCH’s career began as a stallion. He was approved and awarded a premium at the main licensing inspection of the Oldenburg Horse Breeding Association in Vechta. At the subsequent auction, the Celle State Stud won the bid. Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—Denoix’s semen, however, proved to have significantly less motility than the chestnut stallion himself. Consequently, Denoix returned to Vechta two years later as a gelding, where he was sold as a sport horse at the Elite Auction at the age of four.

With his lively, fluid movement and unwavering rhythm, he caught the attention of Nancy Gooding from Plum Creek Hollow Farm in Colorado, USA—to whom Denoix owes the “PCH” after his name. The Pepsi heiress has been working with Hubertus Schmidt for a long time. She let the master rider know. He tried out the then-four-year-old chestnut and was convinced. “By the end of a horse’s fourth year, if you can already collect it a bit, I can sense whether it will become a Grand Prix horse,” says the 2004 Olympic team champion. He should know. He has trained nearly 80 horses to the top level. He can’t say exactly how many himself. Denoix was destined to be one of them.

Nancy Gooding bought Denoix. And while she was at it, she also purchased a colt by San Amour, whose dam is none other than Weihegold OLD. That colt also went on to become a Grand Prix horse: Katharina Hemmer’s Special Gold OLD, who placed fourth in the Louisdor Prize. But that’s just a side note.

Basic Training by Katharina Hemmer

Denoix thus moved into his stall at the Fleyenhof and, as a young horse, was initially ridden in competitions by Katharina Hemmer, a trainer who had just completed her apprenticeship. When he was six years old, she entered him in two Class M dressage competitions. He won both of them. The Fleyenhof isn’t a sales stable in the traditional sense. The goal here is to develop the horses to the best of their ability and, if possible, turn them into Grand Prix horses. If an appearance at the National Championships fits into the schedule—great. But that isn’t a seasonal goal. The horses are given the time they need. That may require patience with one horse or another. Not so with Denoix. He was a real go-getter.

By the time he was seven, Denoix was ready for the S-level. That was the moment when the owner himself got into the saddle at a competition. The gelding didn’t make his S-level dressage debut at some backwater show behind closed doors. Hubertus Schmidt threw his talented young horse right into the deep end and took him to Horses & Dreams in Hagen. Normally, the CDI1* Tour classes there don’t attract much attention. But that year, the arena was packed. Not so much in the Prix St. Georges, although Denoix placed second right off the bat in his first S-level dressage test—his first competition test with a curb bit, and his first in front of such a crowd. But by the time the Intermédiaire I came around, word had spread that there was something worth seeing here. Denoix won the class—which requires full pirouettes and double changes—with a score of 73.147 percent.

Later in the season, Schmidt rode Denoix in the Small Tour in Aachen, finishing third twice. Incidentally, the winner at the time was the future world champion Glamourdale, ridden by Charlotte Fry. In Verden, he qualified for the final of the Nuremberg Burg Cup with Weile. There, he finished fourth. The winner was Total Hope; third place went to Cadeau Noir, who would later become the U25 European Champion, and was still ridden by Lena Haßmann at the time.

Louisdor Prize

Since Denoix was already familiar with cold water, Hubertus Schmidt once again chose Horses & Dreams for his star pupil’s first S*** start—Denoix had won there twice. The only time he was beaten in piaffe and passage during his first season was in the final of the Louisdor Prize, this time by Sandra Nuxoll and Bonheur de la Vie, who is now competing in championships with Swiss rider Charlotta Rogerson—though not with the success that Denoix would still go on to achieve. Incidentally, that was a very strong Louisdor field. Third place went to Dorothee Schneider’s First Romance. Daniel Bachmann Andersen rode Marshall-Bell—who would later become a team world champion—to seventh place.

In the years that followed, Hubertus Schmidt established Denoix as a Grand Prix horse, regularly placing well with scores of around 70 percent.

Breakthrough Under Katharina Hemmer

Since 2023, Denoix has been ridden by Katharina Hemmer. Hubertus Schmidt was recovering from an adductor injury and suggested to Nancy Gooding that she entrust her gelding to his best student. She agreed—at least for the time being. What began with a victory in Freckenhorst quickly became an international success story. Hemmer and Denoix improved from tournament to tournament, competing at the German Championships and in Aachen. The crowning achievement was the Frankfurt Festhalle Tournament. After Denoix had finished near the top—but not quite at the very top—in the Burg Cup and the Louisdor Prize there, he went on to win both the Grand Prix and the Special of the CDI5* Tour.

It was clear that Denoix could be Katharina Hemmer’s ticket to the top of international sports. But a sale was still on the table. At every tournament, Hemmer and Denoix were competing for their shared future. But after they raced from one personal best to the next in their very first season together, it probably became clear to Nancy Gooding, too, that these two had sought and found each other. The idea of a sale was off the table, and the Olympic season was just around the corner.

Paris could have been a possibility. But the dressage arena in Aachen didn’t seem to suit Denoix at all that year. He was nervous, distracted, and fell well short of his potential during the crucial second qualifying round. The pair was named as a reserve for Paris. Too bad. But maybe that’s just how it was meant to be. As the season progressed, the two competed in four more tournaments and won everything there was to win. It was pretty clear that their big moment was still to come.

The First Championship

After a warm-up in Lier, Hemmer and Denoix kicked off the 2025 season at Horses & Dreams with a bang: victories in the Grand Prix and the Freestyle. At the German Championships, they left no doubt about their claim to a spot on the national team with two third-place finishes in the Grand Prix and Special. In Aachen, they confirmed their status as the third-best German pair and finished fifth in the overall Grand Prix and Special standings.

With that preparation under their belts, they headed to Crozet for their first championship together. Already in the Grand Prix, the pair set a new personal best with 75.699 percent. This made them the second-best German pair and played a major role in the team’s gold medal. But they really stole the show in the Grand Prix Special. It was a seamless performance. Denoix glided effortlessly from one movement to the next. Hemmer guided him with the finest of aids, keeping him on a tight leash (which has always been the pair’s trademark). It was a ride that gave you goosebumps, and if it had been up to Chief Judge Katrina Wüst (C), the pair would have won the silver medal. Their colleagues on panels K and E, Janet Foy (USA) and Dr. Hans-Christian Matthiesen (DEN), also placed them in the medal positions. Monica Theodorescu said as recently as early 2026 that this ride had been her “horse moment of the year 2025.” But in the end, they were narrowly edged out, finishing fourth behind Justin Verboomen on Zonik Plus, Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour on Freestyle, and Isabell Werth on Wendy.

Over the past few years, these three have been the dominant pairs in the individual standings, along with Britain’s Charlotte Fry on Glamoudale—who, however, was not in world-championship form at all last year in Crozet. It remains to be seen whether Hemmer and Denoix will be able to replicate their stellar performance from Crozet at the World Championships and whether the judges will be prepared for it this time around.