Charlotte Dujardin
Charlotte Susan Jane Dujardin, CBE (born 13 July 1985) is a British elite dressage rider. The most successful British dressage rider in the history of the sport and the winner of all major titles and world records in the sport, Dujardin has been described as the dominant dressage rider of her era.
Riding Valegro, Dujardin currently holds the complete set of the available individual elite dressage titles; the individual Olympic freestyle, World freestyle and Grand Prix Special, World Cup individual dressage and European freestyle, and Grand Prix Special titles. Dujardin is the first, and to date only, rider to hold this complete set of titles at the same time.
In addition, she forms part of the current Great Britain team for Team Dressage. She has also won Olympic and European Team Dressage championships with Great Britain.
With three gold medals and one silver medal, she is Great Britain's most successful Olympic equestrian.
Born in Enfield, Dujardin was brought up in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, where she attended Vandyke Upper School. She started riding as a two-year-old, returning her elder sisters' horses from the show jumping ring to the horse box. Aged three, she achieved second place at her first Pony Club show jumping competition. To finance their hobby, their mother Jane Dujardin bought and sold ponies for her daughters to ride to enable them to continue riding.
Leaving school aged 16, Dujardin won the Horse of the Year Show competition four times and was a winner at All England Jumping Course at Hickstead on three occasions.
After encouragement from her trainer Debbie Thomas, Dujardin took up dressage with a horse bought from her grandmother's inheritance. In February 2007, after she sought employment with Carl Hester, he gave her some coaching. Spotting her talent, he offered her a job as a groom at his yard in Newent, Gloucestershire, where she has since remained. Dujardin's owned-horse is Fernandez.
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