When Belgian dressage rider Larissa Pauluis headed down centerline Tuesday at the Paris Olympic Games she was fulfilling a promise she made to her husband, who died four years ago of a heart attack.

“When I knew that he wouldn’t be staying with me, I made a promise to him that I would be in Paris at the Olympics,” she said, her voice filling with emotion as she recounted the memory. “I said, ‘I promise you; I promise you forever.’ It was a real challenge because he never saw me riding at Grand Prix even, but I’m here, so it’s wonderful.”

Pauluis made her Grand Prix debut with Flambeau in April 2021, almost a year after her husband’s death at age 39. Within six months, the pair were headed to the Tokyo Olympics as members of the Belgian dressage team. In Japan, she competed with the letters G-R-E-G, for her husband’s name, Gregoire Neslin, inscribed on the fingers of her left glove, directly above a bright red heart drawn on the palm.

She continued her tradition of writing messages to her late husband on her gloves at this year’s Paris Olympic Games. As she waved to the crowd after her Grand Prix test on July 30, spectators could see the six words scrawled on her palms: “I promised you,” on the right; “I did it,” above a red heart on the left. 

The homage may have been a good luck charm, as she and her 14-year-old Dutch Warmblood (Ampere—Lakarla, Zeoliet) posted a 72.12% in the Grand Prix at the Olympic Games, helping Belgium qualify in sixth place for the team final after teammates Domien Michiels and Flore de Winne also put in two consistent tests, earning 72.53% and 73.02%, respectively.. 

Scoring in the 70s on the Olympic stage is a far cry from where Flambeau was when he first arrived at Pauluis’ farm five years ago. 

“He was a horse that nobody wanted because he was so wild,” she said.

After his 15-day trial in her stable, Pauluis wasn’t so sure that her program was the right fit for the dark bay gelding. It was only because of her husband Neslin that she kept him herself.

“I said at the beginning, ‘I don’t believe in that horse,’ ” she recalled. “And it was my husband who said to me, ‘You have to try, because the horse has some quality.’ ”

It wasn’t until two years into their partnership that Pauluis realized she had something special on her hands in Flambeau. 

“I discovered that the horse was so talented,” she said. “[The ability] was in the horse but with work and with a lot of patience.”

Slow and steady was the key to getting through to Flambeau. Today, the dark bay’s transformation is almost too good for Pauluis to believe. 

“Four years ago, he could have not passed by a flower,” she said. “Now, he goes inside a big arena like this for the Olympics. It’s unbelievable.”

Pauluis will ride down centerline for Belgium in the team final at 12:35 p.m. local time on Saturday, second to go in her country’s rotation.

“We know it is really, really difficult to get in the final and everything, so we knew it already. But we are proud about our riders [in the Grand Prix], and I think Belgium has super nice riders now, and we can really expect a super nice result at the end,” said Pauluis.