Good morning and welcome to coverage of the individual dressage at the Tokyo Olympics. Your usual guide, Alan Tyers,our Len Goodman of ‘horsey disco’ is, I’m afraid, unavoidably absent, possibly through his desire to kick back and enjoy one for once without the need to write about or be peerlessly witty about what is very much his alpha and omega, the world cup final of his writing. So you’re stuck with me, a relic from the days of Dorian Williams, Raymond Brooks-Ward and Eddie Macken.
Today Charlotte Dujardin ‘competes for a hat-trick of gold medals’ – or at least that’s the standard line. The disingenuous thing about that, though, is the absence of the horse on which she won at London and Rio, Valegro,who retired in 2016. Yesterday she won bronze in the team event on Gio, a relative novice compared with the horses ridden by her great German rivals, the world No1 Isabell Werth and the best performer on Tuesday, Jessica von Bredow-Wendl. However great Dujardin is, any kind of medal would be an enormous achievement here … but watch out Paris, when Gio has another three years of experience.
Any kind of medal would make history as it would be Dujardin’s sixth after three golds, a silver and two bronzes which would take her ahead of Dame Katherine Grainger as Great Britain’s leading woman Olympian. It would also confirm her status as the greatest daughter or indeed son of Leighton Buzzard, surpassing the achievements of the Barron Knights as well as Kajagoogoo.
But she is not the only GB competitor – her team-mates Carl Hester, who competed at the 1992, 2004, 2012 and 2016 Games – goes on En Vogue and Charlotte Fry, whose first Games this is, competes on Everdale.
Our eyes, though, should also be on Werth, the individual champion at Atlanta 1996, to win again 25 years on to go with silvers at Barcelona, Sydney, Beijing, Rio and six team golds.