‘Dream’ moment for unlikely dressage trio

Barely 24 hours after British showjumpers Nick Skelton, Ben Maher, Scott Brash and Peter Charles won a first Olympic gold for 60 years, the dressage team followed suit.

But Carl Hester, Laura Bechtolsheimer and Charlotte Dujardin are not only Olympic champions, they also journeyed where no other British dressage team had gone before by winning a medal.

Dressage first became an Olympic sport 100 years ago. Britain, though, had never finished higher than sixth in team or individual competitions – until yesterday.

And their triumph was also the 20th British gold medal at London 2012 – the so-called ‘golden gold’ that eclipsed the host nation’s previous best post-war gold haul in Beijing.

As Skelton and company did with Holland on Monday, so the reigning European champions sent a capacity 23,000 crowd wild by emphatically ending Germany’s bid to land an eighth successive Olympic team crown.

Four-time Olympian Hester, 45, set the tone for more medal-mania with a grand prix special Olympic record score of 80.571 per cent on Uthopia.

But it stood for just 90 minutes, as his training partner and protege Dujardin posted 83.286 per cent with Valegro to seal Britain’s success after Bechtolsheimer and Mistral Hojris scored 77.794 per cent. The final team scores, which are averaged out over both grand prix and grand prix special phases, saw Britain finish on 79.979 per cent, silver medallists Germany 78.216 per cent and Holland 77.124 per cent.

Dujardin, who is coached by Hester at his Gloucestershire yard, is favourite for tomorrow’s individual freestyle final, and the grand prix special world record holder’s latest performance did nothing to dispute those odds.

For Hester, who has experienced some tough times on the international stage, yesterday’s triumph was one to savour.

And it was the culmination of a dream that started when he rode a donkey on the Channel Island of Sark, his birthplace.

“The three of us come from three totally different backgrounds,” he said. “It is amazing that I learnt to balance and ride on a bareback donkey, Charlotte came through the showing world and Laura did everything across all the equestrian disciplines before she took up dressage.

“You don’t know when the dream is going to come true, but we’ve got our dream now. My parents aren’t horsey – they can’t stand horses, actually – so that makes it even more ridiculous that I’ve ended up on this route.

“Of course you have to have the opportunity and the break, but the hard work and dedication has paid off for all three of us in a very different route.”