My Dressage

(Try to) Keep Calm and Carry On

Robert Dover’s mount got his tongue over the bits— moments before their Olympic Games test, and with a team medal on the line

Prior to the 1992 Olympics, I was riding Lectron, a beautiful black stallion owned by Walter and Mary Anne McPhail and formerly ridden by their daughter, Melinda. Lectron had been hard for her to bring along to the Grand Prix, so it was decided that I would train and compete him for a year or two.

Lectron began to bloom in his physique and became highly competitive, placing well in the international competitions leading up to the Olympics in Barcelona. We were actually a top-ten favorite as we came to the first day of the Games! Back then, each horseand-rider combination had to go into the “Ten-Minute Ring” before going to the main stadium. In that small space, no one but the rider, not even the horse’s groom, was allowed to touch the horse. With only a minute left before we were due in the Olympic stadium, I remembered that we had not tightened Lectron’s noseband after warm-up, a thing we traditionally did prior to riding a test because he tended to stretch the leather with his strong jaws. The stallion had a nervous twitch that only showed itself when he flexed his head and neck in a certain way, which made him look the most beautiful from the ground but caused him to feel anxious. I yelled up the hill to where our coach, Herbert Rehbein, stood, and asked if I should quickly get off and tighten the noseband myself. Herbert waved and called back that he thought we looked fine as we were, and so off we went to the stadium.

Lectron felt great as we trotted around the outside of the arena. The bell rang, and I made a small circle in front of the stands before entering the arena.

Just then, Lectron twitched his head, and as he did, his tongue went up and over the two bits of the double bridle, something that he had never done before and could not have happened had I tightened his noseband just one hole more. This was the veritable rider’s nightmare!

My thoughts came rapid-fire: Should I get off and try quickly to put his tongue back under the bits? Should I stop and give him rein and hope he does it himself? Should I excuse myself and walk out of the stadium in disgrace? Should I just forge on and hope for the best?

I chose to hope for the best and rode down the center line with Lectron’s tongue hanging out the right side of his mouth. Michael Poulin and Graf George had already gone, and their score of 62% was not good enough to help the United States to a medal. I had to try my best to navigate my horse through the test without mistakes. The problem was that pressure on the reins would force the bits upward. Usually they would contact the roof of the horse’s mouth, but in this case, they would have pinched the underside of Lectron’s tongue, with unknown consequences. My only chance was to push my hands forward and try not to touch his mouth at all while guiding him through the test using only my legs and seat.

Lectron was a kind and gentle stallion, and he tried his best to listen to my cues. Other than his tongue being out, which brought down the scores from those judges who could see it, he proceeded to do quite a good test. I left the arena with a heavy heart, feeling I had let down my team, the owners, my horse, and myself. But as luck would have it, my score of 64%, which equaled the score of my teammate Charlotte Bredahl on Monsieur, combined with the 69% score of Carol Lavell on her great horse, Gifted, was enough to give us the bronze medal! Yes, the bar for an Olympic dressage medal was way lower back in 1992, but the lesson I learned was that sometimes when we feel we are failing, we can push on and produce miraculous results, both for ourselves and for others.

WALKING A TIGHTROPE: With Lectron’s tongue over the bit, Robert Dover dared not touch the reins in his Grand Prix test at the 1992 Olympics

By Robert Dover

Adapted from The Gates to Brilliance by Robert Dover. Used by permission of Trafalgar Square Books, HorseAndRiderBooks.com.