TSF Dalera BB

Frankfurt Festhalle, December 15, 2017, warm-up test for the Louisdor Prize Final. The third-to-last pair to enter the festively decorated arena is national team rider Jessica von Bredow-Werndl and the ten-year-old Trakehner mare TSF Dalera BB. First impression: Wow, she’s big! Then: Not exactly a typical Trakehner look … Then the two begin their dance. Gradually, goose bumps spread across the spectators’ bodies. What a wonderful couple they are! This elegance, this charisma, the ease with which they flow through the piaffe passage sequences …. It looks as if Jessica von Bredow-Werndl doesn’t have to do anything. No, wrong – as if she SHOULDN’T do anything. Not only because Dalera is visibly nervous in view of the – still – unfamiliar setting, but also so as not to disturb her concentration. Of course, there were still points that needed to be polished. But it was already clear at the time that this pair had the potential to be the absolute best in the world.

Dalera won the test with 77.093 percent. And she was also unbeatable in the final. On Sunday, the Festhalle was naturally even fuller than on Friday and Dalera was even more excited. But she had obviously made up her mind that it would be all right if her rider said so and decided to trust her. She also won this test, her first “real” Grand Prix, with 76.720 percent.

The success was all the greater in view of the competition in the 2017 Louisdor class, with Dorothee Schneider and Faustus (73.760) taking second place ahead of Ingrid Klimke on Franziskus (72.160), Heiner Schiergen on Carlos (71.080) and Frederic Wandres with Duke of Britain (70.940). “Germany’s dressage future looks good,” was the headline of the St.GEORG’s report on this Louisdor Prize Final. That was true. All of these horses went on to win medals for Germany – and Dalera outdid them all.

The vision of a breeder

Dalera’s breeder Silke Druckenmüller was already a horse enthusiast as a child. Her second horse was a Trakehner mare – the beginning of a lifelong love affair. Later, however, the architect devoted herself more to breeding than riding. At home on her farm in Ferschweiler in Rhineland-Palatinate, she bred Trakehner horses. She discovered the mare Dark Magic, a daughter of the riding horse maker Handryk. He in turn is a son of Van Deyk, who caused a sensation in sport with Dorothee Schneider and also proved himself as a sire. On the dam’s side, Dark Magic’s pedigree also includes the Grand Prix-successful performance sire Hohenstein, a son of Caprimond, who stood for beauty, rideability and character like no other.

When Druckenmüller took over Dark Magic, she was three years old. She was to be covered for the first time a year later. Silke Druckenmüller had selected the strong-moving Gribaldi son Easy Game for this – long before Gribaldi was the talk of the town thanks to Totilas. In terms of movement, Easy Game was in no way inferior to his sire. Druckemüller already liked his genotype and phenotype at his licensing and so he became the sire of Dark Magic’s first foal.

This was born on April 23, 2007, a filly that was not particularly pretty but was able to move exceptionally well. She was given the name Dalera. The young mare grew and grew, eventually reaching a height of 1.80 meters. She was only broken in at the age of four. In the same year, she made her first public appearances and always returned with a ribbon. Her breeder once told the FN that Dalera gave her rider an “incredibly great feeling” even as a very young horse.

Dalera’s discoverer

The young mare came to the attention of Bavarian master equestrian Werner Bergmann during a training course. Bergmann has an eye for horses. He was also the one who discovered and trained world champion Farbenfroh as a three-year-old before the colorful chestnut came to Nadine Capellmann via Klaus Balkenhol as a six-year-old and then became a world star with her. Dalera was to surpass this. Dalera/Werner Bergmann’s show appearances were manageable: one elementary class dressage test for young horses at the age of five (sixth place), two medium dressage tests for young horses at the age of six (once not placed, once second). After that, Dalera was not seen in public for quite some time.

The beginning of something big

As a seven-year-old, the mare became the property of former 5* judge Beatrice Bürchler-Keller. She already had horses with Jessica von Bredow-Werndl: Unee BB and Ferdinand BB. Now a mare was added in Aubenhausen. Dalera was eight years old when she moved. Jessica von Bredow-Werndl initially trained her new arrival at home. They skipped the medium class. When Dalera was ready for advanced (S) level, she and Jessica von Bredow-Werndl made their show debut together at rural events in Bavaria and in Lamprechtshausen, Austria, which is also just a stone’s throw from Aubenhausen. Their partnership got off to a promising start – in eight starts, they came first six times and second twice. That was in 2016. In 2017, Dalera was S***-ready. At the end of the year, she went into the winter break as the Louisdor Prize winner and thus the best young Grand Prix horse in Germany.

Kickstart to the top of the world

In March, Jessica von Bredow-Werndl and Dalera, who has long carried the suffixes “TSF” and “BB” before and after her maiden name, kicked off the season in Ebreichsdorf, Austria, with a victory in the Grand Prix and at her Special premiere. But even though they met their Frankfurt rival Faustus here – Ebreichsdorf is not the big stage.

The big stage is, for example, the Horses & Dreams in Hagen, where Germany’s dressage scene has been meeting for years at the end of April for the first showdown after the winter break, both with the established top horses and the young hopefuls. Dalera was both, a young hopeful, but also already a top star. Expectations were correspondingly high when she appeared in Hagen, where she only took the Grand Prix.

Dalera did well, finishing sixth with 72.652 percent in the victory of team Olympic champion and individual bronze medal winner Kristina Bröring-Sprehe with Desperados. However, it wasn’t the bang that many had expected. Eavesdroppers in the VIP tent could hear the odd spiteful comment from the competition. But Dalera proved all doubters and envious people wrong.

In the same season, the pair won their first medal at the German Championships, bronze in the freestyle. Before that, they had already come third in the Grand Prix and fourth in the Special. That was the first step towards the World Championships in Tryon. In Aachen, the pair rounded things off by finishing fourth in the Grand Prix and seventh in the Special. This meant they had their ticket to the first Championships in the bag. Here they confidently took gold with the team. They had to leave the individual medals to others – for now. They ended their season with a victory in the Grand Prix and freestyle in Geneva.

Medal collection

What happened next has been documented and described many times – gold with the team and individual bronze at the European Championships in Rotterdam in 2019, Olympic withdrawal due to coronavirus in 2020, then the big moment: double gold in Tokyo, double World Cup winner, double European champion in the individual classification in 2023 and finally their last tournament together, the Olympics in Paris, where they won double gold again. However, it was less the fact that the pair achieved all of this than the how. In their best moments, the pair came as close to the ideal of perfect unity between rider and horse as is probably possible. They managed to make dressage look simple, really like a dance of man and horse. Their two freestyle tunes, which suited them so well, were the icing on the cake.

The legacy

The Olympic Games in Paris marked the end of Dalera’s sporting career and thus the end of an era in dressage sport. Dalera is now enjoying her life as an active pensioner. She shares her pasture with her dam Dark Magic. Breeder Silke Druckenmüller did not live to see her Dalera’s second Olympic success. She died of cancer in 2023 at the age of just 45. The Werndls then took care of their horses and brought their dam Dark Magic home.

When asked about her breeding goal, Druckenmüller, who has received several awards for her achievements, once replied that she wanted to breed riding horses with the right attitude and quality of movement for dressage. She has achieved this, not only with Dalera, but also with her siblings Dallenio and Dallenia, who are not sired by Easy Game, but by his son Millennium.

Dalera is now carrying on the life’s work of her breeder. She is in foal, expecting a foal by Vitalis. Looking at his lifetime achievements, it is clear to see: Even if he is not a Trakehner, his offspring also embody Silke Druckenmüller’s breeding goal.