Heinrich Werth, Isabell Werth's Father, Passed Away

Dressage

Germany

Heinrich Werth, an esteemed dressage horse breeder and father of Isabell Werth, has passed away on 17 July 2024. He was 88 years old.

Heinrich Werth-Kreienberg was born 5 June 1936 and was a farmer at heart who kept all kinds of livestock including cows, pigs, chicken, ducks, and geese. He eventually converted the farm in Budberg to breeding and rearing horses.

The entire family shared a love for horses and became involved in horse sport through the local riding club: the Schmettow Eversael riding and driving club. Heinrich Werth bred dressage horses and had them registered with the Rhinelander studbook.

He followed the career of his daughter closely and saw her become the most decorated dressage rider in history. His 55-year-old daughter Isabell is the most successful dressage Olympian to date. She won 12 Olympic medals including six team gold, one individual gold and five individual silver. She claimed her first team gold and individual silver in Barcelona in 1992 and the last at the Tokyo 2021 Games. He never exuberantly cheered for her, but always savoured her success quietly and privately

Werth had been suffering from health problems for a long time and passed away peacefully.

In an obituary on Ludwig's Pferdewelten, Dieter Ludwig wrote: "Despite a lot of pain, problems all over his body and several strokes, he did not complain, even though he could hardly talk or eat anything. He accepted his life as it came and as it eventually became. In the house of the most successful dressage rider of all time, no one had lost touch with reality, everyone knew what work meant "and we all remember," as Brigitte Werth, mother of Isabell and her sister Claudia, once said, "how much we gave up for the sport."

Heinrich Werth's funeral was in the St. Anna church in Rheinberg (GER) on Friday 26 July 2024 which explained Isabell Werth's late arrival at the 2024 Olympic Games in Versailles.