Jessica von Bredow-Werndl

Two things have almost always been part of the Werndl family’s life: sport and horses. Jessica von Bredow-Werndl’s parents were both competitive athletes, her mother Micaela was a skier and her father Klaus a sailor. And her aunt bred Lewitzer pinto horses in Aubenhausen. So the Werndl siblings, Jessica and her brother Benjamin, who is two years older, came into contact with the animals that were to shape their lives as children. Jessica was four, her brother six, when they received their first riding lessons.

Little Girl and others

Three years later, her parents made their daughter’s dream come true, a dream that almost all little girls have: They gave her her first pony. The pony was appropriately named Little Girl. While other girls her age were doing their dolls’ hair, Jessica von Bredow-Werndl took care of her little pinto mare. The two also competed in their first tournaments together. However, things only got serious when Jessica got another pony. This also had a significant name: Nino the Champ.

The riding pony gelding was only five years old when he came to the then twelve-year-old Jessica. He had already made the acquaintance of the riding horse arena at the Bundeschampionat the year before, and Jessica also managed to qualify him for Warendorf at the first attempt. The trip from Bavaria to NRW was a success. They took a great fourth place in the final. That was the first time she felt the championship feeling, says Jessica von Bredow-Werndl today. And dancing with horses has obviously always been her thing.

Stefan Münch was at her side as her trainer at the time and accompanied her and her brother from E level to Grand Prix sport.

Medal collector

Jessica von Bredow-Werndl collected her first medals in the junior camp with the horses Bonito and Duchess, whose full brother Duke was just as glorious with Benjamin Werndl and Jessica.

Jessica von Bredow-Werndl won double gold at her very first European Championships. In the Young Riders category, she seamlessly continued her U18 time. She was only beaten once in an individual European Championship classification. That was at the 2003 European Young Riders Championships in Saumur, where Thamar Zweistra from the Netherlands came out on top. Jessica von Bredow-Werndl has won a total of six gold and two silver medals in the young rider category, as well as numerous German Champion and Preis der Besten titles.

Even then, the Bavarian learned an important lesson: to concentrate under pressure. Her first Preis der Besten performance directly after switching to a large horse went so well that she was allowed to compete in the Preis der Besten and finished third straight away. However, she was so excited at the second European Championships inspection that she went wrong twice. That stuck. Since then, she has been doing mental training. Anyone who watched the Grand Prix Special and freestyle at the Olympic Games in Paris knows that it worked.

Dry spell

The transition from junior to young rider was not quite as easy for the Werndl siblings. The U25 tour did not yet exist back then. Although Jessica von Bredow-Werndl also competed with Duchess and Duke at her first international Grand Prix tournaments, results of around 68 percent were not enough for her to gain a foothold in the big sport.

She and her brother had help during this time from Isabell Werth, among others, who supported the couple for five years. She was also the one who brought them together with Jonny Hilberath, who became one of their most important trainers and remained with them until his death in spring 2025.

Today, the Werndls work together with national coach Monica Theodorescu, the Dane Morten Thomsen and the former head rider of the Spanish Riding School, Andreas Hausberger.

Breakthrough with Unee BB

The first horse that Jessica von Bredow-Werndl trained herself up to Grand Prix level and brought into the big sport was the KWPN mare Zaire-E. The horse with which she achieved her international breakthrough was Unee BB.

The stallion belongs to Beatrice Bürchler-Keller from Switzerland. Hence the abbreviation BB in his name. Unee was the horse that opened the door to top-class sport for Jessica and he was the horse that sealed her friendship and partnership with her most important patron. The two had known each other for some time. Beatrice Bürchler-Keller had purchased a horse from Aubenhausen for herself to ride, the gelding Lancôme. His solid basic training and great trust in people convinced the former judge Bürchler-Keller (she gave up judging when her horses went international in order to avoid a conflict of interest) of the Werndls’ abilities as trainers.

Unee was no stranger to Germany. In 2010, he came third in the final of the Nuremberg Burg Cup with the Swiss rider Jasmine Sanche-Burger, who also competed in the first S*** tournaments with him. Jessica von Bredow-Werndl liked the stallion, a Gribaldi son. As she already knew his owner through Lancôme, she took heart and asked Beatrice Bürchler-Keller if she could ride Unee. She was allowed to. The beginning of a very successful partnership, both with the horse and with his owner.

Jessica von Bredow-Werndl got Unee BB under the saddle in 2012. In 2014, they were appointed to the national squad and took part in the first of four World Cup finals. They finished seventh. The three times after that, they made it onto the podium each time and finished third. They also took bronze at their first championships for Germany, the 2015 European Championships in Aachen, where they came third with the team.

After his retirement from sport, Beatrice Bürchler-Keller left Unee in Aubenhausen. He enjoys his retirement there.

Queen D

Jessica von Bredow-Werndl had already presented another “BB horse” to the public at the time of Unee’s farewell, the horse with which she was to write sporting history: the Trakehner mare Dalera, more precisely TSF Dalera BB.

In 2017, the pair won the Louisdor Prize Final in Frankfurt. Even in the Festhalle, it is not very often that you see a horse whose international career seems to be as clearly mapped out as this Trakehner mare. Piaffe and passage seemed to be the fourth and fifth basic gaits for her. The mare soon confirmed her good impression against experienced horses. In their very first international season, the pair made the team for the World Equestrian Games in Tryon, where they won team gold. This was followed by another team gold medal at the 2019 European Championships in Rotterdam – the first of six European Championship gold medals in total. They also brought home their first individual medal from the Netherlands: bronze in the freestyle.

On Mount Olympus

After the 2020 Olympic Games were postponed due to the pandemic, the time had finally come in 2021 – Tokyo was just around the corner and Jessica von Bredow-Werndl and Dalera were seeded for the team. It was no surprise that the team won gold. All three pairs – alongside von Bredow-Werndl/Dalera, Isabell Werth/Bella Rose and Dorothee Schneider/Showtime – were pretty sure-fire over 80 percent candidates. The decision in the individual classification was much more exciting.

In the freestyle of the 2019 European Championships, the last meeting of the big three under championship conditions, Werth had been in front, Schneider had taken silver and Jessica von Bredow-Werndl bronze. At the German Championships in Balve, the first Olympic selection, Jessica and Dalera had won all three tests. However, they were “only” second and third at the last inspection in Kronberg. So anything was possible.

On July 28, 2021, it was Olympic decision day. It was a good thing that Jessica von Bredow-Werndl had ridden herself twice as a 15-year-old in the Prize of the Best. On this day at the latest, she had the opportunity to prove that she can now handle pressure. And she really did. To the music of La La Land, it really was a couple’s dance to the Olympic gold medal. Goosebumps for the (few) spectators, the fulfillment of a lifelong dream for Jessica von Bredow-Werndl, a success for the annals of the sport.

Even though they went on to win two World Cup titles and five European Championship gold medals, there was really only one opportunity for them to top Tokyo: the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. The fact that they would be nominated for the team was practically a formality. The mare was fit and unbeaten since Tokyo. But would she manage such a coup again?

As in Tokyo, the team decision was made in the Grand Prix Special. Jessica von Bredow-Werndl and Dalera had won the Grand Prix. But in the Special they had a major slip-up in their showpiece section, the piaffe. The mare was also uncharacteristically unsteady in the contact. The judges placed her in second place, behind the shooting stars of the season, Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour and Freestyle. It was still enough for the team to win gold. But what would happen in the individual classification? Would Jessica von Bredow-Werndl and Dalera manage to leave the special behind them and merge back into the unit in the freestyle with which they regularly wowed judges and spectators alike?

To cut a long story short: They succeeded. Jessica von Bredow-Werndl and Dalera celebrated their freestyle to Edith Piaf’s classic “Je ne regnete rien” as if the failure in the special had never happened. It was a magnificent performance that earned them their fourth gold medal. They had shown everyone. They were the undisputed number one. Queen D retired at the peak of her career. Paris was the crowning glory of their magnificent career.

Dalera will now have her first foal in spring 2026 – which could theoretically even meet its granddam, because when Dalera’s breeder Silke Druckenmüller died of cancer far too early and the fate of Dalera’s dam Dark Magic was uncertain, the Werndls brought the mare to Aubenhausen. She is now enjoying her retirement there.

Jessica von Bredow-Werndl’s career, on the other hand, is far from over. She has a new future hope of the BB brand under her saddle: the Dancier son Diallo BB, who was victorious seven times in nine competitions in his first international season. Diallo is only ten years old. So it will be interesting to see what is yet to come. The only title still missing from Jessica von Bredow-Werndl’s collection is that of individual world champion.

Beyond sport

Jessica von Bredow-Werndl is married to the former event rider Max von Bredow. His father was the Bavarian state coach for the bush riders. The couple have two children, Moritz and Ella Marie, who was born in 2022, the year of the World Championships in Herning. The whole family, including brother Benjamin and his children, live on the Aubenhausen estate.

They not only train horses here, but also run the e-learning platform“Aubenhausen Club“. This provides tips for horse training and suggestions for solving typical problems when riding, but above all also targeted sports and fitness training for riders. In this project, Jessica von Bredow-Werndl benefits from her correspondence course in marketing and communication, which she completed alongside her riding career.

The vegan is also the author of several books: “Das Glück der Erde: Was ich täglich von meinen wunderbaren Pferden lernen darf”, “Gut Aubenhausen – Emilias Herz für Pferde” and “Gut Aubenhausen – Emilia und das Glück der Pferde”.