Quadrille – Flight in Tölt

In the afternoon, spectators were invited to watch the opening ceremony with a show named ‘Horse power.’ And that’s for sure: really powerful horses from different breeds were shown, Frisians, Spanish, quarter and warmblood horses, and the artist Lorenzo, who usually rides his Andalusians by standing on their backs.

However, the most outstanding part of the show was the Icelandic horse quadrille, performed by the team from the breeding farm Lotushof – home of the member of the Icelandic National Team, Bergþór Eggertson and his wife Vicky.

Quadrille, performed by members of Lotushof. Photo: Henk Peterse.

Twenty-eight riders performed an accurate quadrille of a high difficulty level, both in terms of movement and speed, riding attentive, well-trained horses that enchanted the audience with charm and temperament.

Antonia Mehlitz, one of the two leading riders stated that they have been training the quadrille since February. Each training session started with rehearsing the choreography on foot, before riders stepped into the saddle.

Each individual invested considerably commitment into the training; they rehersed three to four times per week under the direction of Vicky Eggertson. The project brought the group closer together, whose friendship and cooperation has grown steadily. And the horses benefitted from the quadrille training a lot, said Mehlitz.

In the competition arena itself only one rehearsal was possible, after which changes had made as the dimension of the riding track proved to be different from the one back home.

The first time that the group performed a quadrille was in 2008 on the occasion of the championship on ice, Ice Horse. By now they are known throughout East Germany and have even been booked for fairs.

The team is made up of very different riders, the youngest of whom is 13 and the oldest 63. The horses are between six and 25 years old. The most prominent of them is the stallion Skörungur frá Eyrabakka, which successfully competed at the 2009 World Championship in Switzerland and, judging by its performance, is still in good shape.

Some members of the quadrille team took on the honorable task to lead each nation to the horse parade of nations. The group will perform their quadrille in a smaller group each day of the competition week.

Dagmar Trodler reports for Iceland Review from Berlin.