You could hardly have scripted it better when Great Britain’s Dressage riders scooped Olympic team gold on home turf at the London 2012 Olympic Games in Greenwich Park. A day after their jumpers topped the team podium for the first time in 60 years it was the turn of Carl Hester, Laura Bechtolsheimer and Charlotte Dujardin to bring spectators to their feet in celebration of the first-ever British Dressage medals in the history of the Games – and, even better, they were also golden ones. Dujardin went on to add the individual title and, four years later, the question is whether she and her wonderful gelding, Valegro, can do it again.

They arrived into the sport already on the crest of a wave of excitement created by the spell-binding Dutch partnership of Edward Gal and the fabulous black stallion, Totilas. This pair set the world of Dressage on fire on an August night in 2009 in the shadow of Windsor Castle (GBR) when they won the European Freestyle title, and nothing has ever been the same since.

The previously relatively sedate sport suddenly realised the entertainment value of the discipline, and Dujardin and Valegro have picked up that flag and flown it high ever since, with a passionate fan-base following their every hoofprint!

Advertisement