Charlotte Dujardin
Name: Charlotte Dujardin
Location: Gloucestershire
Current top rides: Carl Hester and Coral Ingham’s Imhotep (chestnut, gelding, 16.2hh, 9yrs, Everdale x Vivaldi, Breeder: T Huizing NED, Groom: Francesca Gorni).
Major achievements:
- Winner of Great Britain’s first Olympic medals in dressage: individual Gold medal and team Gold medal at London 2012.
- First British woman to retain an individual Olympic title as she won Individual Gold in the Freestyle at Rio 2016 breaking the Olympic record in the process.
- Current World Record holder in all three tests, Grand Prix with 87.460% (London CDI-W, Great Britain 2014), Grand Prix Special 88.022% (Hagen CDI, Germany 2012) and Freestyle with 94.300% (London CDI-W, Great Britain 2014).
Personal Best Scores
Lifetime PB
Grand Prix: 87.460% with Valegro (2014 CDI-W London)
Grand Prix Special: 88.022% with Valegro (2012 CDI Hagen)
Grand Prix Freestyle: 94.300% with Valegro (2014 CDI-W London)
Combination PB (current ride: Imhotep)
Grand Prix: 82.422% (2023 EU-CH Riesenbeck)
Grand Prix Special: 82.583% (2023 EU-CH Riesenbeck)
Grand Prix Freestyle: 91.396% (2023 EU-CH Riesenbeck)
About Charlotte
Charlotte started her riding career at a young age, beginning in showing where she achieved much success, winning at Horse of the Year Show four times and Hickstead three times. Her family bought young ponies to bring on and sell to fund her main competitions. On leaving school, Charlotte went to work for top dressage rider Judy Harvey for four years. Charlotte was ‘spotted’ by Carl Hester as part of the BD Young Professionals award and subsequently began helping him out on his yard. Carl then offered Charlotte a full-time role as his rider in 2007. Considerable success in her competitive career followed, as she brought her self-produced horse Fernandez through the levels.
Charlotte made her senior Grand Prix debut in January 2011 on board a nine year old Valegro, with whom her memorable partnership began in 2007. Later in 2011, she was a member of the first dressage team to win a gold medal, before going onto make history just one year later at her first Olympic Games in 2012 bringing home two gold medals. As a combination Charlotte and Valegro went on to win five team medals and seven individual championship golds for Great Britain. Charlotte was awarded an OBE in the 2013 New Year Honours List, and a CBE in 2017.
She has since gone on to produce numerous horses to international Grand Prix level, achieving further individual and team championship medals with Mount St John Freestyle, Gio and Imhotep.
