When she competes at the Royal Windsor Horse Show this week, the champion dressage rider Charlotte Dujardin has a point to prove. After the retirement of Valegro, the horse with whom she won three Olympic golds, she is keen to show once and for all that she is not a one-horse woman.
“That’s absolutely my motivation,” she says, after a morning ride at the Gloucester-shire yard owned by her mentor, Carl Hester, where she has been based throughout her dazzling career. “I want to do it again not just on one but on a number of horses. I don’t want to be known just for what I did with Valegro.”
Mind, what she did with Valegro
was pretty remarkable. Unbeaten in individual competition since January
2012, the horse gave his last competitive performance in December 2016.
These days, he enjoys a pampered retirement in Hestor’s yard. Such was
the gelding’s astonishing level of achievement – with him, Dujardin
broke records almost every time they competed – it has created a
daunting precedent.