Organisers of The London International Horse Show 2022 are delighted to announce details of its hugely popular Dressage Unwrapped Masterclass, this year titled ‘Back to the Future’. Some of Great Britain’s most celebrated Dressage riders will come together at ExCeL London on Thursday 15 December to reflect on past successes and expand on techniques to meet new challenges. These include hosts Richard Davison and Carl Hester MBE, rising British dressage superstar, Charlotte Fry and her mentor Anne van Olst who will both be speaking for the first time to a British audience on their route to the top and British eventing’s Laura Collett and Richard Waygood.
British Dressage has enjoyed a truly golden era in recent decades, with the likes of Charlotte Dujardin CBE and Carl Hester MBE bringing home a plethora of Olympic, FEI World ChampionshipTM and FEI European ChampionshipTM medals. The 75-minute event will comprise four sections, kicking-off with Olympic gold medalist Carl Hester MBE who will share his insights into the methods used to attain his achievements. Guiding the audience through the highlights of British Dressage in recent years, Hester will reveal his training routines, what he thinks it takes to produce superstar horses and how to make champions of both horse and rider.
British Olympic Dressage rider Richard Davison will host the second quarter, with a technical display of top-level dressage movements. Talking the audience through the intricacies of the sport, Richard will reveal his riding and horse training tips and techniques, explaining the methods international riders use to produce the highly skilled movements seen in world-class horses, and how these are introduced to the training plan, along with his key to a successful schooling strategy.
Eventing will then take centre stage in the third part of the masterclass, when the British Senior Eventing Team’s Performance Manager, Richard Waygood MBE, will be joined by Laura Collett MBE, a multiple-championship winner and member of the gold medal-winning Tokyo 2020 Olympic team. Laura and Richard – both masters at producing exceptional horses – will demonstrate the secrets of essential training techniques for success and particularly focus on ways of keeping dressage horses mentally motivated, ensuring that they have the energy and enthusiasm needed to successfully compete.
The masterclass will conclude with Great Britain’s newest star, Charlotte Fry, who will appear alongside internationally-renowned coach Anne van Olst. The 26-year-old Fry has cemented her status amongst the best in the world in recent years, winning team bronze at Tokyo 2020 and team silver at the 2021 FEI European ChampionshipsTM and is at the forefront of the next generation of British Dressage champions. This success has not come overnight; the daughter of former top Dressage rider, Laura Fry, has undergone years of extensive training and hard work to get to this point, and her achievements are no mean feat. Fry, along with van Olst, herself a former Danish Olympian who won team bronze in Beijing in 2008, will discuss the practical steps on the road to the top.
The masterclass will take place during the afternoon performance on Thursday 15 December, which also features the FEI Dressage World CupTM Grand Prix supported by Horse & Hound.
