Valegro (born 5 July 2002) is a gelding ridden by the British equestrian
Charlotte Dujardin in the sport of
dressage. He stands and has the stable name of Blueberry. He is a double World Champion in Dressage, he won Grand Prix Special and Grand Prix Freestyle at the World.
Career
Having joined
Carl Hester
Carl Hester (born 29 June 1967 in Cambridgeshire, England) is a British dressage rider competing at Olympic level. As of 8 August 2012 the Fédération Équestre Internationale (FEI) rank him 12th in the world riding Uthopia. In 2012, Heste ...
's stable in
Newent
Newent (; originally called "Noent") is a market town and civil parish about 10½ miles (17 km) north-west of Gloucester, England. Its population was 5,073 at the 2001 census, rising to 5,207 in 2011, The population was 6,777 at the 2021 Census. ...
, Gloucestershire as a
groom, Dujardin was offered the opportunity to develop the novice
Dutch Warmblood
A Dutch Warmblood is a warmblood type of horse registered with the Koninklijk Warmbloed Paardenstamboek Nederland (Royal Warmblood Studbook of the Netherlands (KWPN), which governs the breeding of competitive dressage and show jumping horse ...
gelding by Hester and co-owner
Roly Luard, with the later intention of the horse being ridden in competition by Hester.
Valegro remained unbeaten since CDI Kapellen in January 2012.
The combination became part of the team which won gold in a
European Dressage Championships
The European Dressage Championships are the European championships for the equestrian discipline of dressage. They are held every two years in odd-numbered years. Gold, silver, and bronze medals are awarded in both individual and team competitions ...
event in
Rotterdam
Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"Ne ...
. They then won the
FEI World Cup grand prix at
London Olympia in 2011, setting a world record for the Olympic grand prix special discipline scoring 88.022%, in April 2012.
Selected to represent Great Britain in the
2012 Summer Olympics, in the first round they set a new Olympic record of 83.784%. On 7 August 2012 the pair were members of the team which won the gold medal in the
team dressage event.
Two days later they won the gold in the
individual dressage event with a score of 90.089%.
At the 2013 European Championships in
Herning, Charlotte and Valegro won both the Grand Prix and the Grand Prix Special with 85.94% and 85.69%.
At Olympia 2013 he beat the Grand Prix Freestyle world record (by around 2%) he set the new record to 93.975% (the record was previously held by Edward Gal and
Moorlands Totilas). At Olympia 2014 he improved his own Grand Prix Freestyle world record (94.3%) and his own Grand Prix world record (87.46%).
Valegro also achieved a gold medal in the individual dressage at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games with a score of 93.857%, and was an integral part of the Silver medal winning Team for Great Britain, at the same event. In 2016 Breyer released a model of Valegro.
Retirement
On 14 December 2016, Valegro and Charlotte Dujardin marked his retirement from competition with a performance given at the London International Horse Show 2016 and televised live by the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
. It was followed by a farewell ceremony with Valegro's owners, and companions Charlotte Dujardin, Carl Hester and Alan Davies.
is his great great damsire.