For the History Books!

It has been a very emotional few days for the great british dressage team winning a team and individual gold and a individual Bronze. The team was made up of three very talented riders 45 year old and team captain Carl Hester riding Uthopia who is also the trainer of the ultimate olympian Charlotte Dujardin and part owner of her fantastic horse Valegro, And of course the very talented Laura Bechtolsheimer trained by her father riding 17 year old Mistral Hojris. 

British Dressage team winning Gold

Each of these talented riders proved there ability to be representing team GB by gaining fantastic scores which lead them to win the Team GOLD. Carl Hester: Uthopia (80.571%), Charlotte Dujardin : Valegro (82.162%), Laura Bechtolsheimer: Mistral Hojris (77.873%). Each rider showed Rhythm, Precision and Elegance with great fluency through each movement. It was Team Germany and Holland that was chasing team GB for the gold, and they have also been watching the british horses very carefully, as we used look onto then to get olympic level dressage horses; now the tables have turned and we are the one's producing well bred dressage horses. 

As said By Olga Corbet an olympic gymnast 1972 who also does a bit of dressage herself “its very piece of cake” 

And as for the Individual round it was that. with all 3 riders placing in the top 5!! Charlotte Dujardin riding Valegro won Great Britain's first Dressage individual gold medal in one hundred years of Olympic equestrian history. She and Valegro finish their first Olympic Games with two gold medals and put their names down in the history books. Even more impressive she only started riding at grand prix level only just 18 months ago at the beginning of 2011. the 26year old riding one of the youngest horses in the competition, Valegro at only 10 years old is an amazing achievement as it normally takes 6-7 years alone to get a horse to this sort of level by time you teach them all the movements. However Carl has always had great belief in her and has always said to her "Some people wish it will happen, Some people think it will happen and your going to make it happen." He thinks Charlotte is an unbelievable character, every since she first turned up for a lesson with him, charlotte and Valegro has created a fantastic relationship. in which has let her compleat a grand prix special and a grand prix freestyle which has to contain at least 33 movements and some movments are required.

Charlotte Dujardin and Valergro 

Charlotte performed a very patriotic test with music created by Tom Hunt, which created a very emotive atmosphere containing the Big Ben chimes, showing off her lovely canter pioettes and beautiful extended trot. The light hearted emotive music was used to harmonise Valegros expressive movements  scoring and outstanding 90.089%. Charlotte Dujardin is an ultimate Olympian.

Charlotte Dujardin winning Gold

Laura Bechtolsheimer executed a very moving performance on Mistral Hojris hitting every beat of the music which was the light hearted and comical Hakuna Matata. She finished the test in tears knowing she had done well and that her 17 year old horse Mistral Hojris had performed a powerful round. The horse and rider were just in tune with each other finishing with 84.339% shooting her into first place with two rider still to go. However finishing in Bronze place it was a fantastic achievement and also a very emotional one for the rider.

Carl Heston in his 4th olympics also performed to dramatic music showing off the horses highlight of his extended trot and lovely piaffe the 11 year old stallion scored 82.857% and finished in 5^th place. 

This was a moment of history not to have been missed in the equestrian world gaining medals in all 3 disciplines: showjumping, dressage and eventing. The most successful Olympics so far since 1908, and we are still sitting in 3rd place for the most amount of medals overall, makes a change from nil point. A great achievement from Team GB!!

Ashley J

Going for Gold!!

On day 10 of the olympics we did a tremendous achievement on gaining a TEAM GOLD for the Equestrian Show Jumping!! The British team was lead By Nick Skelton (52) Riding Big Star, with a fantastic team around him; Ben Maher on Tripple X, Scott Brach on Hello Sanctos and Peter Charles on Vindicat. Winning Team GB there 17th Gold medal of the home Olympics and the first gold medal in Show Jumping in 60 years since 1952, and our first medal in show jumping in 28 years. The Home crowd is certainly paying off this year especially within the equestrian games. Now having won 2 Golds and a Silver medal. With that electrifying atmosphere which is just pushing the team to be the best they can be, and its been working so far!

The Team winning a Well Deserved Gold!

The rules of the show jumping course is you must jump a course of between 500m-600m long containing 12-16 jumps/combinations. The lowest score wins so you need to avoid gaining penalty points from knocking down jumps or a first refusal which can cost you 4 faults. Also the time is very tight in these courses so for every 4 seconds you go over the time you gain 1 fault. 

Bob Ellis an international course designer was behind this makings of this tasking course, giving all the riders and horses a run for there money. it was defiantly an olympic course full of twists and turns 1m90cm spreads withs jumps at 1m58cm which is astonishing thats the same size as me if not slightly bigger!! The whole course had a London/ British theme to it, the water jump for example was based on the white cliffs of Dover which was 4m 30cm Wide!! there was a Darwin Jump, a London Montage and even a Stonehenge combination. 

Nick Skelton one of the older team members is lucky to be here competing at the olympics or even to be back on a horse, as he also like Mary King broke his neck in 2001 and was in a neck brace for a long time, he is lucky to be walking never mind winning a Gold for Britain. And he almost won the individual medal as well however he just missed out on getting placed by getting 4 faults. He did a great job on landing 5th however still thrilled he got a gold for the team as that is what he came for to get a gold after 6 olympics and 52 years. 

Nick Skelton Jumping the London Montage

The team played a Good competition with the nail bitting finish in the jump off against the Netherlands. A very Close competition with the two countries being neck and neck through out most of the competition. But Nick Skelton put the pressure on as first out in the jump off getting a fast clear round and from then on it was in the bag. Winning the well deserved Gold medal with 3 clear round and 4 faults from the Jump off the final member of the Netherlands didn't even had to go out as team GB had already Won. Ben Maher a very elegant rider on his home bred horse, Peter Charles who originally competed for Ireland but decided to change nationalities to Great Britian, and of course Scott Brash from Scotland and the youngest member of the team all contributed to this fantastic achievement  for Team GB that will go down in the History books. 

Scott Brash Jumping the Darwin Jump

Ashley J