The FEI’s \u201cHorse of the Month\u201d for July is Mount St. John Freestyle by Fidermark\/Donnerhall. The following text was published on the International Equestrian Federation’s website:<\/p>\n
Mount St John Freestyle announced herself on the world stage at the FEI World Equestrian Games in Tryon (USA) back in 2018, winning Team and Individual bronze with Charlotte Dujardin.
\nEight years later, the Hanoverian mare is among the favourites for gold at the FEI Dressage World Championship. Alongside Denmark’s FEI World No.1 athlete Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour, she arrives in Aachen (GER) in some of the best form of her competitive career.
\nFreestyle’s story began in Germany, where she was bred by Stephen Kurz. Her prefix is Mount St John rather than MSJ because she was bought, not bred, by the stud. Her sire is German Dressage stallion Fidermark and she is out of Donna Gracia. Mount St John Stud managing director Emma Blundell bought Freestyle as a foal from the Elite Hanoverian Foal Auction in Verden, Germany, in 2009.
\nNine years later in Tryon, Freestyle and Dujardin helped Great Britain secure Team bronze before adding Individual bronze. The pair scored 81.4 per cent in the Grand Prix Special, confirming the mare’s immense potential at the highest level.<\/p>\n
Now 17, and almost a decade on from Tryon, Freestyle’s career has never followed a straightforward path. Health precautions, her role within the Mount St John breeding programme and the disruption caused by Covid-19 have all limited her appearances over the years. Indeed, between May 2021 and the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, she made just four international starts.<\/p>\n
Freestyle has been partnered by Laudrup-Dufour since 2023 and together they have developed into one of the strongest combinations in international Dressage. She is now co-owned by Laudrup-Dufour and her longtime supporters, the Zinglersen family.
\nA year after joining Laudrup-Dufour, the pair were fifth individually at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games and helped Denmark claim Team silver.<\/p>\n
The following year, at the FEI Dressage European Championship in Crozet (FRA), Freestyle topped the Grand Prix with 80.8 per cent to help Denmark secure Team bronze. The pair also collected Individual silver medals in both the Grand Prix Special with 81.6 per cent and the Grand Prix Freestyle with 89.8 per cent.<\/p>\n
Soon after, they made the perfect start to the FEI Dressage World Cup\u2122 2025\/2026 season with a glorious win in Herning (DEN). However, Laudrup-Dufour and Blundell made the strategic decision not to target the Final in Fort Worth (USA), instead focusing on preparing for Aachen. It proved a wise choice. A series of outstanding performances on the outdoor circuit have helped propel Laudrup-Dufour to World No.1 status.<\/p>\n
Returning to Herning in March this year, the duo began their 2026 campaign in style by producing a new Grand Prix personal best.
\nScoring 84.17 per cent at the Herning CDI5*, Laudrup-Dufour said: “How was today even possible? Today’s ride with our lovely Mount St John Freestyle is a Grand Prix I’ll never forget. She was just perfect. As simple as that. Forever grateful for you, Free. Congrats on your personal best.” Judge Isobel Wessels awarded the pair 10s for the final canter pirouette and trot transitions. Laudrup-Dufour’s coach, Kyra Kyrklund, said it was the first time she had seen a 10 awarded for that movement. The following day, Cathrine and Freestyle won the Grand Prix Freestyle with 90.47 per cent. Laudrup-Dufour described the mare as “one in a billion”. She continued: “How proud, honoured and lucky we feel to have you in our life. Forever thankful for this weekend with you. It feels like this is once in a lifetime. Thanks to everyone in our amazing team.”<\/p>\n
Freestyle’s impact extends beyond her own achievements in the arena. Through embryo transfer, her offspring have already begun making their mark and she is even a grandmother. Freestyle’s fourth foal’s sire is none other than World champion stallion Glamourdale. MSJ Glamourstyle is now a three-year-old whose up-and-coming career is eagerly anticipated. Freestyle’s talents have also made dreams come true. During one of her breaks from international competition, Blundell was able to realise a lifelong ambition of her own. In June 2023, the pair won a national Grand Prix class in Yorkshire with 74.13 per cent. Blundell said: “It went better than I expected, Grand Prix has been a lifelong dream for me, and Freestyle was amazing. She was so easy, and no different to how she is at home. I had never done a Grand Prix, but Freestyle really knows what she’s doing.”<\/p>\n
It was a fitting victory at Northallerton Equestrian Centre, where a decade earlier Blundell had started Freestyle’s competition career in a four-year-old class. Blundell added: “What’s so amazing about Freestyle is the gears she has and her ‘on-off switch’. She is the safest horse on the yard and would win a handy pony class, but she can just click into another gear, and then she has as many gears as you could ever want. That’s priceless, but it’s just who she is. She loves to work with you and please her rider, and you could train her to do anything.”<\/p>\n
Eight years after winning Team and Individual medals in Tryon, Freestyle returns to the World Championship stage as a genuine gold-medal contender. If she performs to her full potential, she and Laudrup-Dufour will be among the combinations everyone is watching when the FEI Dressage World Championship begins in August.<\/p>\n
Source: FEI<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The FEI’s \u201cHorse of the Month\u201d for July is Mount St. John Freestyle by Fidermark\/Donnerhall. The following text was published on the International Equestrian Federation’s website: Mount St John Freestyle announced herself on the world stage at the FEI World Equestrian Games in Tryon (USA) back in 2018, winning Team and Individual bronze with Charlotte […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":14259,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[],"news_kategorien":[],"class_list":["post-14261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hannoveraner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hannoveraner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hannoveraner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hannoveraner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hannoveraner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hannoveraner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hannoveraner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hannoveraner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hannoveraner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hannoveraner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14261"},{"taxonomy":"news_kategorien","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hannoveraner.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news_kategorien?post=14261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}