Salzgeber rode the same horse to all of her Olympic, World Equestrian Games and European Championship medals. Rusty 47, nicknamed Rusty, was a
Latvian warmblood gelding who was named Rotors when he was purchased by Salzgeber from a German
show jumping barn. The pair came to international attention at the 1997 European Championships, with a sixth place individual finish and a team gold. They repeated team gold at the
1998 World Equestrian Games, while also taking a bronze medal in individual competition. The German team, with Salzgeber, rode to another team gold at the 1999 European Championships, and Salzgeber and Rusty also took individual silver. After
Gigolo, a horse ridden by
Isabell Werth, was retired in 2000, Salzgeber and Rusty became the top dressage pair in Germany. At the
2004 Summer Olympics, she improved her individual performance to win a silver medal, and rode with the German team to a second successive gold in the team competition. Months before his death, it was announced that Rusty had been
cloned, resulting in two young
stallions, nicknamed "Rusty Clone 1" and "Rusty Clone 2". In 2008, Salzgeber again began competing at the Grand Prix level on Herzruf's Erbe, who would develop into one of her top international horses. In that year, the pair won the Otto Lorke Prize, given each year to the best German Grand Prix horse under 10 years old. During 2008, Salzgeber and Herzruf's Erbe had won 10 Grand Prix competitions. In 2009, the pair were expected to compete at the European Dressage Championships, but were not chosen for the German team after Herzruf's Erbe sustained an injury at a competition in July. The immediate diagnosis was a severely pulled tendon, although a later diagnosis was that the horse had strained a suspensory muscle, expected to heal in about three months. By early 2010, the horse was again able to be ridden, but was still not in top condition. In June 2011, Salzgeber announced that she would be selling one of her top-level horses, Wakana, to a student, leaving Herzruf's Erbe as her only horse prepared to compete at the international level. Later that month, Salzgeber removed herself from consideration for competition at the 2011
CHIO Aachen and European Dressage Championships. She announced that she had decided to take a break from competition and focus more on training and her personal life. In 2012, she announced that she would not be seeking a spot on the German team for the
2012 Summer Olympics, saying that her training duties had not given her time to properly prepare Herzruf's Erbe. She had ridden the horse at competitions during the 2011-2012 winter, and stated that she planned to compete at additional competitions during the winter of 2012-2013. However, in late 2012, the horse was put into a one-year rest period to help him recover from the injuries that had troubled him throughout his career. In October 2013, Salzgeber brought Herzruf's Erbe back into competition, winning a national show in Germany. The pair was successful at subsequent competitions, and in December 2013, it was announced that they had been returned to the German equestrian squad's A-team.
Coaching and training In 2005, Salzgeber was named as the new dressage training adviser to the Australian national equestrian team. In the role, Salzgeber held training camps, approved team members' training programs and helped choose team members for international competitions. In late 2006, she resigned, citing a mix of training duties at home in Europe and disagreements with the Equestrian Federation of Australia. Under her tenure, however, the Australian team made their best-ever placing at the
2006 World Equestrian Games, finishing 9th. In early 2010, Salzgeber announced that she would be moving her base of training from the stables in Bad Wörishofen where she had been located since she graduated from college. The new facilities, nearby in Blonhofen, Bavaria, offered more room and extensive natural therapy facilities, including
aquatherapy,
acupuncture,
osteopathy, and
homeopathics. Salzgeber said the new, larger, base would allow her to give more training clinics and accept more students. ==References==