Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour competes with Nox, an eight-year-old promising young horse, in his first S-level dressage competition

The competitions in Denmark aren’t quite comparable to the German dressage tests. However, the DRF MA1 class, which Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour competed in today with her two young horses, Grand Quest-Bell and Nox, includes, among other things, half pirouettes, traversals at a trot and a canter, and four-beat changes.

From Foal Champion to S-Class Winner

The seven-year-old dark chestnut Grand Quest-Bell by Grand Galaxy Win-Blue Hors Don Romantic (breeder: ZG Jepsen) was once a foal champion in Denmark and has been a part of Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour’s stable for some time now. Until now, however, he had been presented by her rider, Janni Dietz.

Today, he competed in his first test with Laudrup-Dufour and won it with a score of 74.057 percent, despite a mistake in the half left pirouette—which counts double. The pair scored particularly well in the canter sequence.

Nox – Green, Yet Bold

Riding the highly talented KWPN gelding Nox by Fürst Romancier, Laudrup-Dufour placed second with a score of 73.396 percent.

Nox was trained by Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour herself from the very beginning, but has hardly any competition experience. She began riding him at age five, and at age six she entered him in a young horse class, which they won with a score of 90.6 percent. Since then, the gelding has not competed in any tournaments—at least none listed on the Danish Equestrian Federation’s tournament calendar.

So today was an exciting experience for the now eight-year-old youngster, which he handled with flying colors, as Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour praised on Instagram: “Still very green in the canter, but I’m very pleased with how courageously he enters the arena.”