THE crowds paid an emotional farewell to the everyone’s favourite Atterupgårds Cassidy, retired at the ECCO FEI World Championships, Herning by Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour.

After 12 years together and countless championships under their belt, the time has come for the 19-year-old Cassidy to enjoy his senior life back home at Cathrine and Rasmine Laudrups-Dufour’s yard.

Cathrine explains: “It is the end of an era and that’s what makes this so emotional but in reality nothing changes for me and Cassidy. We’ll keep having the same routines and we’ll keep training because Cassidy loves to train! But I feel that he deserved one last dance and his fans deserve one last dance.”

Surprised everyone

Cassidy was not necessarily destined or expected to become one of the best dressage horses in the world, not many people believed he would progress beyond the small tour.

And the same can be said for Cathrine at first, but she explained: “He was just so soft and supple and had so much power! And quickly after I’ve got him home, I realised that this could be something very special”.

Cathrine thought that her first individual European Championship medal (2010) would be the highlight of her career, but this was only the beginning. The pair would go on to win a medal at every European Championship for all age groups (Junior, Young Rider and Senior) and become the first partnership ever to have done so.

“It is the good story. That we have taken that long road together: a young normal girl and her young horse. I never had a Grand Prix horse before Cassidy, so I also had to learn, whilst I was educating him and because of that he made me the rider I am today.”

When living-legend Kyra Kyrklund joined their trainer team together with Nathalie Zu Sayn-Wittgenstein everything clicked, and Cathrine and Cassidy started to master that special art of making Grand Prix look effortless.

Cathrine highlights the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro as one of her biggest moments with Cassid.

They finished 13th in the Freestyle at their very first Olympic Games was a huge accomplishment. They went on to win an individual bronze at the FEI Dressage European Championship in Gothenburg in 2017.

The two were naturally contenders leading into the FEI World Equestrian Games™ 2018 in Tryon, but unfortunately Cassidy suffered a minor injury so they were unable to go.

They bounced back for the European Championships 2019 in Rotterdam (NED) and took home another individual bronze medal. That would be Cassidy’s last Championship, followed by a few more successful World Cups, before it was time to call it a day.