Equestrian star Lottie Fry reveals regime behind winning World Cup
For Lottie Fry, claiming her first FEI Dressage World Cup Final title last month with 14-year-old stallion Glamourdale was the culmination of years of hard work and the realisation of a long-standing ambition.
In lifting the major championship, Lottie, a former Driffield School pupil and daughter of the late British Olympic Dressage athlete Laura Fry, became the first British rider to lift the Dressage World Cup since 2015.
Lottie said the victory in Switzerland had been both an endorsement of her team’s hard work and a motivator for future elite competitions.
She said: “I was born into it and there has never been anything else. It was always dressage for me. I have put everything into it.”
Topping both the Grand Prix and the Grand Prix Freestyle, the triumph also saw the 29-year-old two-time Olympic bronze medallist rise in the dressage world rankings to second, two places above her team-mate and fellow Yorkshire-raised rider Becky Moody.
However, her path to the top of the sport is strikingly different to that of Becky, who runs an equestrian facility with her sister near Gunthwaite.
Having been recommended by Olympic gold medallist Carl Hester, Lottie, moved to work with Anne and Gertjan van Olst at Van Olst Horses in the Netherlands aged 17, said lifting the World Cup was “something we were really hoping to accomplish one day”.
Lottie said she had forged a strong team with the Van Olsts over the past decade, whose mentoring had enabled her to take “every opportunity with both hands”. She said: “It’s been a very exciting journey to go from the Young Riders to the the top of the seniors with a few different horses. I’ve learnt so much and I’m still learning every day.”
She said winning the World Cup had been “a bit of a dream”, before adding “but now this year we have the European Championships at the end of August, so we’re aiming for that”.
Great Britain will need to be amongst the top teams to qualify for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, she said, adding: “It’s a team event, so you’re looking to get the team medal as well as the individual, which makes it a bit more exciting.”
Following Team GB’s run of success that qualification is expected by many, but Lottie said she wouldn’t feel an excessive amount of pressure as a result. She said: “If all goes to plan it should be ok, but the thing with horses is that you can never be 100 per cent sure because you are partners with a live animal. You always have to expect the unexpected.
“When you have such a good partnership with the horse, you love the competitions, you love the horses then it’s always exciting to be competing, then the pressure doesn’t feel so much.
"Once you’re sitting on the horse nothing else goes through your head. It’s just you and your horse and the partnership.
"I’ve always been excited to compete. I’ve never been a nervous person.”
Lottie said she and Olympic medallist Anne Van Olst planned every last detail before a major competition to ensure they were in the best fitness and mindset, with a focus on looking for the horse to peak at the right time.
She said: “You really have to concentrate on what’s important for you and your horse and sacrifice a little bit of everything else in the lead up to a big competition.
“The main thing with the horses is we keep the routine very similar and concentrate on the competition tests as much as we can. We work to keep the horse fresh and excited, so doing other things like going on the water treadmill, in the forest, on the fields, a lot of variety.”
As Glamourdale loves hacking, it has become an important part of their routine said Lottie.
She said: “At the moment he’s also breeding a lot, so it’s good for him to relax and do lots of different things.
“It’s very important that he can enjoy life just as we do. He’s always so excited to go to competitions – he loves competing – so we really try to keep that. It’s always such an amazing feeling “When he’s really excited to go in front of the public and he wants to show off and have everyone looking at him, and his varied lifestyle seems to enhance that.”
Lottie, who has 14 horses in training, from a three-year-old to Grand Prix horses, with the Van Olsts, said their base in Den Hout, Netherlands, was an amazing place to live, especially for the horses, and it made the travelling much easier to European competitions.
She said: “You need to build up a partnership with every horse, not just riding them, but in the stable and taking care of them, getting a connection with them so you really know them inside out and can trust them. When it all comes together in dressage in the arena it is very beautiful.“