It’s very difficult to express quite how monumental Britain’s first gold medal in dressage actually is.
Today in Rotterdam the quartet of Carl Hester, Laura Bechtolsheimer, Emile Faurie and newcomer Charlotte Dujardin won the European team championship, not because the previously all-conquering Germans or Dutch were weak, or even because the British were merely the best team on the day. The reality is that Britain was inspirational, delivering a world record team total of 238 and with all four riders making such a significant contribution that they could have dropped the score of Bechtolsheimer- the British number one, no less – and still won by a handsome margin.
Even more importantly, this particular team shows that, whatever elitist perceptions outsiders still harbour about equestrian sport, anyone can succeed with talent and hard graft. Bechtolsheimer is the only one from an equestrian background. Hester, at the other extreme, grew up on the island of Sark and learned to ride –literally – on a donkey, only moving to mainland Britain aged 19, after which he was talent-spotted; Faurie was born in South Africa and literally jobbed his way across Europe, building up his reputation as a horseman layer by layer till he landed up in the UK; while Dujardin was herself noticed by Hester who spotted the same hunger he had craved 20 years before and resolved to give her a break. Many will be especially thrilled for Hester, a colourful character who has underpinned the team since 1990. He finally has an individual title – to be decided on Saturday and Sunday – within his grasp.
Anything can happen with horses, and it is quite possible that gold medallists from the two most recent European and world championships Totilas (with new partner Matthias Rath) and Jerich’s Parzival (Adelinde Cornelissen) will rally after finishing below Hester in today’s overall standings.
If they do, no matter. With three riders scoring over 77 per cent, the British raised the bar for everyone using three home-produced horses – Uthopia, Valegro and Elmegardens Marquis – that are young and still improving. No other country has this strength in depth in the run-up to London 2012. At the post-event press conference, a German journalist asked if Valegro (Dujardin’s mount, which is owned by Hester and his long-standing collaborator Roly Luard) was for sale. She wasn’t being flippant.
For generations the British regarded dressage, the horsey equivalent of figure skating, as something you took up only if you had either got too old to go eventing or were too nervous to jump in the first place. Up to two Olympics ago, our dressage riders were merely making up the numbers and drew scant media attention compared with their eventing and show jumping colleagues. It took a long time for dressage to be perceived as “cool” by the younger generation, and for their enthusiasm to be matched by investors willing to buy quality horsepower and then patiently wait six years for them to be nurtured to this level.
One is loath to gloat but it would be interesting to be a fly on the wall in the German camp tonight. This time last year, Holland’s Edward Gal and the Dutch super stallion Totilas won three golds at the world championships and so Germany – who have won nearly every Olympic gold since the second world war – trounced their bitter rivals (blogs passim) by making Totilas’s owner a £15 million offer he could not refuse. Germany certainly achieved their ambition of beating the hosts in Rotterdam, but somewhere in all that wheeler-dealing they overlooked the Brits.
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