Joanne Pitt (GBR), 34, Paralympian, individual bronze and team gold medallist at the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games™ and member of UK Sport’s World Class Performance programme for almost 10 years, died peacefully last week with her family beside her after being treated for a rare lung condition.
Pitt had right-sided hemiplegic cerebral palsy, which affected the feeling and mobility down her right side, but she never let that stand in her way. After attending a summer holiday camp when she was six years old, she became hooked on horses and never looked back.
At the age of 25, she represented Great Britain at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games with Rockhill Kashmir, and six years later with her gelding Estralita she took bronze in the Grade II Freestyle and team gold at the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games™ in Kentucky.
This season, Pitt and Estralita had won all but two of their 12 starts, including international team and individual victories at Deauville CPEDI3* in March and the Grade II title at the NAF Five Star Winter Dressage Championships.
The FEI expresses its sincere condolences to Pitt’s fiancé, family and friends, to the British Equestrian Federation and British Dressage, and her many friends in the international equestrian community.
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