One could hardly have scripted it better when Great Britain’s dressage riders scooped Olympic team gold on home turf at the London 2012 Olympic Games in Greenwich Park. A day after their jumpers topped the team podium for the first time in 60 years it was the turn of Carl Hester, Laura Bechtolsheimer, and Charlotte Dujardin to bring spectators to their feet in celebration of the first-ever British dressage medals in the history of the games—and, even better, they were also golden ones.

Dujardin went on to add the individual title and, four years later, the question is whether she and her wonderful gelding, Valegro, can do it again.

World Records

Dujardin and Valegro now hold all three world records in Grand Prix, Grand Prix special, and the freestyle. They took double-gold at the Alltech Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI) World Equestrian Games 2014 in Normandy, France, and Grand Prix special and freestyle gold at the FEI European Dressage Championships in Aachen, Germany, in 2015. They were also crowned champions of the Reem Acra FEI World Cup Dressage series in both 2014 and 2015. They have, quite simply, been all but unbeatable.

However, their margin of victory in the freestyle at Aachen last summer was a very narrow one, with just 0.25% separating the British pair from Germany’s Kristina Bröring-Sprehe and Desperados FRH, who are expected to give their main rivals a run for their money again in Rio