If you looked closely, you could see that there was a third creature in the dressage arena in Leipzig.
Gentle piano music rolled off the tape, and the audience in exhibition hall 1 fell silent as Jessica von Bredow-Werndl and her mare Dalera celebrated their lessons.
It's said to be coincidence - a noise-dampening sound carpet is laid out at every Grand Prix ride - but the magical sounds made this performance feel that little bit more otherworldly.
Evi Simeoni
sports editor.
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Only for the World Cup decision on this Saturday evening (7:00 p.m.) will the snappy or festive own creations be presented to accompany the freestyle.
Von Bredow-Werndl is a potpourri from the musical La-La-Land.
With this freestyle she has already become Olympic champion and European champion.
Now she wants to take one last title with her at this unofficial World Indoor Championships before she says goodbye to big sport for a few months.
She is expecting her second child in August.
The little passenger from Leipzig becomes a girl.
"I'm in the fifth month," said the 36-year-old gold rider from Aubenhausen.
"And I feel in great shape." From a sporting point of view, she is even a little sad that this is the last big test before her baby break.
The fifteen-year-old mare still feels like she's getting better.
“She always wants to give 100 percent.
If there's a mistake, it's mine.”
They didn't do any on Thursday night.
The two won the Short Grand Prix, created especially for telegenic events, with its compressed technical requirements, the qualification for the rushing freestyle final, with 84.793 percentage points and thus a clear lead over the second, the Danish Cathrine Dufour with the only ten-year-old gelding Vamos Amigos with 80.019.
Third place went to Isabell Werth on Weihegold with 79.756 percentage points.
"I don't have a second chance anymore"
A small lapse in the one-gallop changes cost her a better grade.
"Without this mistake, we could have broken the 80 percent mark," said the 52-year-old medal collector from Rheinberg.
Which shows: Even at the farewell performance of the 17-year-old black mare, an ornament of her kind, the two will not miss their fighting spirit.
She is not presumptuous enough to want to beat von Bredow-Werndl with Dalera.
"This miracle will not happen," says Werth, who won the World Cup finals with Weihegold in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
"But maybe I can scratch the second if everything goes perfectly." She felt the pressure to present Weihegold as well as possible at her last competition.
"This time I can't say that if we don't succeed this time, we'll do better next time.
I don't have a second chance anymore.” In any case, Weihegold has already shown in the Short Grand Prix what kind of professional she is.
The emotions should only come out at their farewell ceremony after the award ceremony this Saturday.
The house will be full.
Viewers are advised to have a pack of tissues ready.
But the dressage life goes on.
At home in Rheinberg, Isabell Werth has a stable full of young horses.
And Cathrin Dufour's young Westphalian gelding Vamos Amigos proves in Leipzig that he could be one of the top championship horses of the future.
However, he still has to get used to the hustle and bustle of the tournament, especially indoors.
He was very excited when he entered the arena.
And when the audience started clapping at the first climax, the rider says, she just thought: No!
"He had his legs everywhere." She sees the fact that he stayed with the matter as a good sign.
But at the home World Championships in Herning in the summer, she prefers to rely on her experienced crack Bohemian.
The Danes have a good chance of winning the title in their own country.
The dominant German team is in a phase of upheaval - and the trump ace will be missing because of the baby break.
"We cannot compensate for Dalera," says Isabell Werth.
In 2024, at the Olympic Games in Paris, Jessica von Bredow-Werndl wants to attack again with the mare.
She wants to use the break to come up with a new freestyle.