DUJARDIN Charlotte

General
HEAD GEAR
She wears a protective helmet instead of a customary top hat when competing after falling in 2009 and fracturing her skull. At the 2012 Olympic Games in London, she became the first dressage rider to win a gold medal wearing a helmet. "I feel unsafe without my helmet on. People say you don't always need it but for me, especially in this kind of atmosphere, you never know what can happen." (theguardian.com, 15 Dec 2014; telegraph.co.uk, 10 Aug 2012; Instagram profile, 30 Jun 2021)

AUTOBIOGRAPHY
In March 2018 she released her autobiography called 'The Girl on the Dancing Horse', in which she revealed that she had struggled with depression following the 2012 Olympic Games in London and a breakup with former partner Dean Golding. "Depression was not something I'd ever really understood. But it got to the point where I was thinking about harming myself because I had no idea what to do next. I wanted to hurt myself because I felt such pain. I never wanted to stab myself or hang myself, I did it by not eating, punishing myself in that way. I lost quite a lot of weight, nearly two stone. I honestly didn't feel as if anyone could help me. It did not matter where I went or who I spoke to, I could not escape the grief and the pain of losing my old life, the life I'd had before the Olympics, and I think that was something I had to figure out for myself. I came to the yard and I rode my way through wave after wave for five, six months. My horses lifted me every day. I don't know why I wanted to punish myself, it was not that I had done anything wrong, but I suppose I was grieving because I'd lost Dean, I feared I was about to lose Valegro and I'd definitely lost any kind of normality." (Instagram profile, 13 Sep 2020; dailymail.co.uk, 03 Mar 2018)

VALEGRO
She won gold with her horse Valegro at the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games, and retired the mount following the 2016 Olympia Horse Show in London. Her trainer Carl Hester showed Valegro a couple of times as a four-year-old, but the horse proved difficult to handle until Dujardin began riding him. The horse was honoured with a statue in October 2020 at the International Centre for Birds of Prey in Newent, Gloucestershire, England. "Valegro was very, very hot as a young horse. I started riding him, and I never let Carl have him back. He was never naughty, just hot - he had all this power and he didn't know what to do with it. When you sit on a horse like that, it is amazing." (bbc.co.uk, 13 Dec 2016, 16 Nov 2015; horsemagazine.com, 21 Oct 2011; dailymail.co.uk, 03 Mar 2018; gloucestershirelive.co.uk, 27 Oct 2020)

EURO DISQUALIFICATION
She and her horse Mount St John Freestyle were disqualified from the 2019 European Championships in Rotterdam, Netherlands, after traces of blood were found on the horse's flank. Judges accepted there was no intentional mistreatment of the horse. "It was a really horrible thing to have to go through, but it has made me a stronger person. At the end of the day, the rule is the rule. It was very difficult to deal with the social media side of things. I have been very fortunate in my career in that it has always gone upwards, but everyone has to deal with highs and lows." (bbc.co.uk, 12 Dec 2019)

At the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro her silver medal in team dressage and gold in individual dressage made her the first British equestrian to win three and four Olympic medals of any colour in dressage. (SportsDeskOnline, 01 Jun 2021)

At the 2012 Olympic Games in London she was part of the first British team, alongside Carl Hester and Laura Tomlinson, to win gold in dressage at an Olympic Games. At the 2012 Games she also became the first British equestrian to win individual gold in dressage, and, in conjunction with her team gold medal, this made her the first British equestrian to win more than one gold medal in dressage at an Olympic Games. (SportsDeskOnline, 01 Jun 2021)

Her victory at the 2014 World Cup Finals in Las Vegas, NV, United States of America, meant she became the first dressage rider to hold the World Cup, Olympic, world and European titles at the same time. (bbc.co.uk, 19 Apr 2015)