Carl Hester

Carl learnt to ride at an early age in Sark before moving to Dorset to work at the Fortune Centre of Riding Therapy. Two years after taking up dressage, he was crowned the 1985 Young Rider National Champion.

After representing Great Britain at the 1990 World Games on his employer Dr  Bechtolsheimer’s Giorgione, he went on to win his first medal for Great Britain at the 2009 European Championships.

Carl claimed team gold and two individual silver medals with Uthopia in 2011 – his first ever individual honours. The combination went on to represent Great Britain at the London Olympics in 2012, where they secured team gold, before adding a team bronze to their tally in 2013. Carl was awarded an MBE in the 2013 New Year Honours List.

Carl was selected to be part of the team that won bronze at the World Equestrian Games in 2018, riding Hawtins Delicato. They then went on to represent Great Britain at the FEI Dressage European Championship in 2019.

Carl took over the ride on En Vogue – known as Vogue – from Charlotte Dujardin in June 2020. They made their Grand Prix debut that September and achieved a career best score for Carl of 86.48% in the freestyle at the National Grand Prix Championships in December.