¡Arriba! ¡Arriba!

They’re flashy and exuberant, but can Iberians really challenge the warmbloods in top-level dressage? Helen Triggs tracks down some top performers

- Helen Triggs

CAN Iberian horses challenge the warmbloods in the international dressage arena? The truth is they already have and will undoubtedly continue to do so. The pool of potential dressage stars from Portugal and Spain is much smaller than the northern European warmblood, so they are likely always to be a rarity, but there is something about the Iberian which captures the imagination.

The performance of PRE (Pura Raza Española) Fuego De Cardenas and Juan Manuel Muñoz in the freestyle at the 2010 World Games was memorable. Even though they didn’t win, their performance raised the spirits of the spectators. They scored more than 81% and left many warmbloods languishing down the leaderboard.

And at the London Olympics, social media was awash with videos of Portugal’s Goncalo Carvalho and Rubi AR’s spectacular piaffe and passage. In 2019, Portugal qualified for the Tokyo Olympics on Lusitanos (PSL – Puro Sangue Lusitano). The Spanish national team has always included PREs in the mix.

In 2019, Britain fielded its first Nations Cup team with an Iberian horse, when Vicki Thompson-Winfield and Sam Francis’s impressive PRE, Mango Jacaro, made their team debut at Hickstead where they had a personal best of 74.05% in the grand prix freestyle. Lusitano Ufano flew the flag for Britain with Becky Edwards as members of the British young riders’ team at the European Championships in 2015 and 2016.