Clever, talented, nice? Have a gold medal!

Until today, British dressage had never won an Olympic medal of any colour. This afternoon, they smashed it and picked up gold ones. They did so in London. They did so by beating Germany (who dominated the sport forever – I exaggerate only very slightly). And they beat them by a Gloucestershire mile. Could anything be better?

Obviously I’d like to thank World Class support and lottery funding. Big up the grooms and experts who keep these stunning horses fit and well. And before they turn up the music to encourage me off this acceptance speech stage, I’d really like to thank the lynchpins of this gold medal success – rider Carl Hester and former rider Dr Wilfried Bechtolsheimer, for being very clever, very talented, and very nice.

You see, the gold that the team of Carl, Charlotte Dujardin, and Wilfried’s daughter Laura Bechtolsheimer took home today has been a good 20 years in the making. Carl couldn’t afford a superstar dressage horse, he learnt to ride in Sark, on a donkey. He travelled to Gloucestershire to work for Dr B. There, he honed his natural talent, competed some extraordinary horses, and locked a then five-year-old Laura in the feed room when she got on his nerves. Today, they hugged as she cried over what they’d achieved.

There are few families with the wealth to possess one, let alone several, of these incredible grand prix horses, but where Carl landed firmly on his feet was that Dr B was prepared to let him ride them, too. Most stable jockeys can expect to spend the majority of their time getting bucked off the newly backed youngsters and contesting the odd novice class.

Carl had to sell his 2004 Olympic ride Escapado in order to afford a yard and set up on his own. There was a risk he’d never have a horse so good. Still, he never forgot the break Dr B gave him, and passed the favour on. First, he wanted partner Spencer Wilton to be the one he trained to gold medal glory, but just as they parted ways, Charlotte rocked up to work in return for training and took on some of Carl’s top horses.

The best was Valegro. Not only has Carl moulded the pair into the best in the world, he has protected Charlotte from the sale of that horse. Whoever owns the best dressage horse in the world is offered millions for it. Millions. That’s hard to turn down, particularly since a horse could rip a tendon tomorrow and be worth nothing. That’s jolly, jolly nice of him – and joint owner Roly Luard.

Three people asked me today: “If Carl owns Valegro, why isn’t he riding him?” Well one, he has Uthopia to ride, two, he didn’t just want to win a gold medal in London on a horse he’d trained, he wanted to train another horse and rider to do the same alongside him, and three because he’s Nice like that. And being nice is smart, because by making that decision, he didn’t have to rely on others to make up a gold-medal worthy team, he had two thirds of it in his stable. He’s not just a pretty face that Carl.

So to the former colleague who once told me: “You’ll never get anywhere in life being nice”, Carl just proved that’s bollocks. He was good enough to give a girl a break, because someone had done the same for him, and those two men’s actions secured unimaginable success for British Dressage today. Niceness is underrated. I’m very happy it exists in my sport. Thank you.