Carl Hester, of Great Britain, will be using parts of a freestyle he first had made back in 1999 for another horse, named Legal Democrat, whom he rode in the European Championships. Six years later, he’ll be using it again in his first FEI World Cup Final.

“I had a tape I’d made myself at home, which sounded like a cat being murdered,” recalled Hester with a laugh. “After that I thought, ‘I must do something professional,’ because it was just starting that people were really doing it well then.”

Hester hadn’t expected to get to the final in the championships, but he was so embarrassed that he contacted Theo van Bruggen of the Netherlands, who had created the ride, and asked him to make a professional recording of the music. But by the time the tape arrived, Hester had retired Legal Democrat. “So I just put the tape in a drawer really, and when I got Escapado to Grand Prix last year, I got that tape back out again,” he said.

“Don’t ask me why, because Escapado is a completely different type–he’s almost all Thoroughbred. But he fits the music brilliantly,” said Hester.

“He’s been a very nervous horse to train, so I’ve had a very simple ground pattern to go with the music. He’s a beautiful horse–he’s light like air on the floor, and I just want to ride him for really what he is at the moment rather than try and be too clever.”

Hester decided to avoid a technically difficult program. “I just thought I’d rather go for a more correct balance, an aesthetically pleasing program, rather than try and be too clever for the stage the horse is at. Being in England he’s very underexposed to high-pressure competitions. You compete in England and you’ve got 20 people standing around the arena, and you go to Europe and you’ve got 20,000 hanging around.”

Hester didn’t really start to get serious about his freestyle until just before the Olympics, since he didn’t think Escapado was ready for it until then.

When he surprised himself by qualifying for the freestyle final in Athens, he decided his own program wasn’t good enough, so he borrowed teammate Richard Davison’s. He practiced the test four times the day before the final.

“I haven’t been very well-prepared, really, before this,” Hester admitted.

Since Athens, though, he and Escapado have won one World Cup qualifier and finished second at home at Olympia (London)–with his own music.

“I’m just feeling my way a little bit because the horse is just not used to the atmospheres. He can do all the technically difficult things at home, but it would be crazy to throw him in at the deep end when I’ve taken so many years to keep his temperament right to get him to this level,” said Hester.

“I went to the Olympics as the fourth member, and I came out as the top member. The horse just made the turning point at that time in his career. He came from being a bit unpredictable to being very predictable.”

Hester said he “amazed myself and everyone else by qualifying for the World Cup.” And in mid-March he and van Bruggen made a new program. So he skipped the final qualifier at s’-Hertogenbosch (the Netherlands) but rode there in the CDI to practice the test.

“I just chickened out at the last minute,” he said. “I’m coming to Las Vegas on the cheap and cheerful!”

Hester calls his music “crowd-pleasing.” He uses “Here Comes The Sun” for passage music, “Fame” for the trot, and I have Madonna’s “La Isla Bonita” for the canter music.

Hester’s test doesn’t include any double pirouettes, although he does do 11³2 pirouettes and passage half-passes.

“It’s a very flowing program with steep half-passes, because that’s the horse’s high point. It’s just all in flow,” he said. “I have to really go in the program at the beginning until I feel that I can get the relaxation before I come to the more difficult stuff later on. I run on his energy for a bit and hope that after I’ve been in there a few minutes everything starts to calm down and he gets his breath in.

“I’m going to have to change if I want to be in the very top group. But things have happened so fast for me since the Olympics that I just haven’t had time. It’s taken me six years to get the horse to Grand Prix, and now I’ve got to think about the next five years of making it really good.”