Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro delivered a stunning display on their return to the Olympic arena as Great Britain ‘s dressage team ended day two in Deodoro holding silver medal position.
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Elsewhere Bryony Page claimed Team GB’s fourth medal of the day with a silver in trampolining.
The team, consisting of Charlotte Dujardin, Carl Hester, Fiona Bigwood and Spencer Wilton, won the event in London 2012.
“If there is no drama, which we all know can happen, we will hopefully take home the gold!” said five-time Olympic gold medallist Isabell Werth (47), who helped anchor the German total at 81.295 with a great test from the mare Weihegold.
Dujardin will still have the chance for individual gold. Today’s result brings the Germans’ overall tally to 13 sets of Olympic team golds. “We don’t have parents paying for us or any big sponsors buying horses, we buy cheap horses and make them ourselves and that’s what being a horseman is all about – training horses rather than relying on people to buy the most expensive horses you can find, because there’s no guarantee with that”.
The U.S. were back in the medals thanks to a high score of 80.644 from Florida-based Laura Graves, who abandoned a career as a hair stylist to train her horse Verdades. “I was happy to see my teammates so happy and then to have a personal best and a score I’ve been reaching for was just icing on the cake”.
She said: “I think, for me, going in there today was about going in and enjoying it”.
“So I was hoping that if there was maybe one horse that had problems that the other three are so strong that they could deal with the situation but all four horses were really good over three days and this was much more than we expected”. Individual medals will be presented on Monday after the top 18 riders compete in the choreographed Freestyle competition.
“I’m taking her to Christ the Redeemer tomorrow to pray for Monday”, he said.
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