BRASH, Scott
Born: 23 November 1985, Peebles, Scotland
Olympics Competed In: 1 (2012)
Olympic Medals:
2012 Gold - Equestrian (Team show jumping)
Scott Brash started riding at the age of seven when his father Stanley, a former jockey, bought a Welsh mountain pony for him and his sister Lea. He competed in his first show when he was nine and at ten Scott began jumping with the Pony Club.
He won the Scottish Puissance Championship in 2004 and in 2006 he won the British Young Rider Championship at Olympia. He made his British debut at the 4 Star Nations Cup in Poland in 2008, helping the team finish fifth.
His first major victory was in the Toronto World Cup qualifier in 2011 with Bon Ami II. By then he was emerging as a new talent and Olympic hopeful and a horse, capable of taking on the Olympic challenge was acquired for Scott by Lady Harris and Lady Kirkham, They bought the nine-year-old gelding Sanctos Van Het Gravenhof and renamed him Hello Sanctos - seven months later the pair were selected for London 2012.
Scott teamed up with Ben Maher, Peter Charles and the experienced Nick Skelton and they went on to win Britain's first show jumping medal since 1984 and the first gold since 1952, after they beat Netherlands in a jump-off. Scott finished equal fifth in the individual competition.
Scott was honoured with MBE in the 2013 New Year Honours list and his success continued that year when he won team gold and individual bronze at the European Championships at Herning in Denmark and on his 28trh birthday in November he won the 12th and final round of the Longines Global Champions Tour at Doha and clinched the overall title - the youngest ever winner. The previous year he had finished 48th
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BULLEN, Jane Mary Elizabeth
Born: 7 January 1948, Catherston, near Charmouth, Dorset, England
Olympics Competed In: 1 (1968)
Olympic Medals:
1968 Gold - Equestrian (Team eventing)
1968 Silver - Equestrian (Individual eventing)
Jane Bullen made her own piece of Olympic history in 1968 when she became the first woman to represent Britain in the three day event, and being on the team that won the gold medal she created further history as the first woman in Olympic history to win an eventing gold.
Jane comes from a famous equestrian family. Her father Jack was a lieutenant with the Royal Horse Artillery and her mother Ann bred and trained ponies and was also a well known and respected writer and illustrator of children's pony stories. With having five children she had plenty of critics to review her work! Jane, and brother Michael and sister Jennie, appeared in seven Olympic Games between 1960 and 1988. Surprisingly, no two of them appeared together in the same Games. Jane was the only one of the three to win a medal.
After leaving school Jane went to the Middlesex Hospital where she trained as a State Registered Nurse.
In 1968, on her own horse Our Nobby she won the Badminton Horse Trials at the age of 20. It is reported that she worked a night shift at the hospital the night before her triumph. A few months later she teamed up with Derek Allhusen, Richard Meade and Ben Jones and again riding Our Nobby, she helped the quartet secure gold. Jane, who finished 18th in the individual competition, was still training at the Middlesex Hospital at the time of her Olympic triumph and earned the nickname 'The Galloping Nurse'.
In 1974 she married Tim Holdernerness-Roddam and in 1976, riding Warrior, she won the Burghley horse trials. The next year she won a team gold at the European Championships and in 1978 Jane won Badminton for a second time.
Jane retired from eventing in the mid-1990s, but remained involved with the sport as Chairman of British Eventing from 1999 to 2004. She was involved with judging and various other aspects of the sport including horse and pony well-being. She has written more than 25 books about the sport and horses.
She was appointed an LVO (Lieutenant of the Royal Victoria Order) in 1998 and was awarded the CBE in the 2004 Birthday Honours List. She also received the Queen's Award for Equestrianism in 2009.
Jane used to compete with HRH Princess Anne and her husband Mark Phillips and was a personal friend of the couple and is their son Peter's godmother.
Jane appeared in the film International Velvet as Tatum O'Neill's stunt double.
Jane and husband Tim opened the West Kington Stud farm, in Wiltshire in the early 1990s shortly before Jane's retirement from competitive eventing.
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CHARLES, Peter
Born: 18 January 1960, Bootle, Liverpool, England
Olympics Competed In: 3 (1992, 1996, 2012)
Olympic Medals:
2012 Gold - Equestrian (Team jumping)
Peter Charles was born in Liverpool and raised in the Bootle area where show jumping was the last sport on any kids' mind as it is a football mad area.
Peter had a tough childhood; his father died when he was 10 and his mother when he was 14. At 15, with £10 in his hand he left his remaining family and headed for Ireland, his mother's birthplace, where he followed his dream of working with horses and he worked with Irish trainer Iris Kellett before getting a job as a stable lad with Eddie Macken.
He made his Great Britain debut Hickstead at the age of 21 at but he switched to jumping for Ireland in 1992 and appeared in the Barcelona Olympics for his 'new' country.
In 1995 he became the first Irishman to win a gold medal at the European Championships in Switzerland when he won the individual gold medal riding La Ina, beating Britain's Michael Whittaker into second place. Peter was also a member of the Irish team that won three prestigious Nations Cup events that year at Aachen, Dublin and Spruce Meadows, Canada.
He represented Ireland at the Olympics for the second time at Atlanta in 1996 but, again, he failed to win a medal. However, he won a second European gold medal when Ireland won the team competition at Arnhem, Netherlands in 2001. Peter only represented Ireland twice at the European Champiobnships and each time he won gold.
Also in 2001 he won the first of three consecutive British Show Jumping Derbies at Hickstead. Only Michael Whittaker, Nick Skelton and Edie Macken had previously managed to win the event three years in succession.
During recuperation followed a bad accident at an event in Hampshire in 2006, Peter made the decision to re-join the Great Britain team. After all, his horse was British-owned, he lived in Britain and he paid his taxes in British so he felt it was a logical move.
The rules of the sport said that if he jumped for Great Britain again then he would forfeit any chance of returning to represent Ireland. As it happened he made the right decision because, at London 2012, he became part of the first British team to win an Olympic show jumping gold medal for 60 years.
The British team consisting of Peter, Nick Skelton, Scott Brash and Ben Maher went into a jump-off against Netherlands and it was Peter who jumped last but he kept his nerve and his faultless round on Vindicat W guaranteed the British win in front of 23,000 fervent fans.
After the Olympics the 10-year-old gelding Vindicat W was sold to American show jumper Jessica Springsteen, the daughter of singer Bruce Springsteen, for an undisclosed fee
With an Olympic gold medal, two European Championships gold medals, over 50 Grand Prix wins, three Hickstead Derby wins and more than 100 Nations Cup appearances Peter was awarded the MBE in the 2013 New Year Honours list for his services to equestrianism.
Peter's three children Harry, Scarlett and Sienna are following in their father's footsteps and have won several national titles.
A Liverpool Football Club fan all his life, Peter is also a keen golfer and was the proud winner of the Portuguese Pro/Am Championship in 2009 with golfer David Howell and former Brighton and Northern Ireland international footballer Steve Penney.
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DUJARDIN, Charlotte Susan Jane
Born: 13 July 1985, Enfield, London
Olympics Competed In: 1 (2012)
Olympic Medals:
2012 Gold - Dressage (Individual) 2012 Gold - Dressage (Team)
Although she was born in Enfield, North London, Charlotte Dujardin was brought up in Hertfordshire and rode her first pony at the age of two, and at just three and a half years of age she came second in her first show pony event!
She openly admits that as a youngster, schooling was low on her priorities and 'bunking off' was a regular occurrence so she could go horse riding.
By the time she was 16 she had won four times at the Horse of the Year Show and had three times been a winner at Hickstead. She achieved her success with the full support and backing of her family but when trainer Debbie Thomas came into Charlotte's life she encouraged her to turn her attention from showing to dressage.
In 2007 she had some lessons with Carl Hester and, spotting her talent, he invited her to work as a groom at his yard in Gloucestershire. She was asked to look after a gelding called Valegro (stable name Blueberry) which Hester intended riding for himself but Dujardin and the horse formed such a good partnership that they stayed together and won the team gold at the 2011 European Dreassage Championship in Rotterdam.
Not surprisingly, Charlotte and her horse were selected for the 2012 Olympics and she was part of the first ever British team to win a dressage medal of any colour when Carl Hester, Laura Bechtolsheimer and Charlotte won the team gold medal. It was the first time since 1972 that a German team had not won the team dressage gold - with the exception of 1980 when they did not enter the Moscow Olympics.
Two days after her team gold, accompanied by music including Land of Hope and Glory, The Great Escape and the chimes of Big Ben, Charlotte made it an amazing double when she won the individual gold, with team-mate Laura Bechtolsheimer taking the bronze medal.
Charlotte was awarded the OBE in the 2013 New Year Honours list and went on to win two individual gold medals at the European Championships in Denmark later in the year. The British team could not retain their title but had to settle for the bronze medal.
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GORDON-WATSON, Mary Diana
Born: 3 April 1948, Blandford, Dorset, England
Olympics Competed In: 1 (1972)
Olympic Medals:
1972 Gold - Equestrian (Team eventing)
The daughter of Brigadier Gordon-Watson, MC, OBE, it was on one of her father's horses that Mary enjoyed all her major three day eventing successes.
The horse, Cornishman V, was bought by her father for £500 in 1963 when he was a four-year-old (the horse, not h father!). He was originally used as a hunter and point-to-point horse but Mary soon established a relationship with him and the British selection committee wanted the pair of them to go to the 1968 Mexico Olympics. Sadly, a fall from him at an insignificant first fence during the Royal International Horse Show resulted in Mary breaking a leg and the horse was subsequently ridden by Richard Meade at the Olympics instead, and the pair came home from Mexico as gold medalists after Great Britain won the team title.
Once recovered, Mary renewed her partnership with Cornishman and they made their first of five Badminton appearances in 1969 it was also the year that Mary won her first major title when she won the individual European Championship gold medal.
At the World Championships at Punchestown the following year Mary became a double gold-medallist by winning both the individual and team titles - the latter with Richard Meade and Mark Philips.
Mary won a second European gold medal in 1971 as a member of the British team that took the title and at the Munich Olympics the following year, Cornishman won his second team gold medal, but this time with Mary in the saddle. The pair also finished fourth in the individual competition
Cornishman retired from eventing in 1973 but returned to hunting and pursued a new career in ... the movies! He appeared in the film Dead Cert, based on the Dick Francis thriller, in 1974 and also in the 1978 movie International Velvet. Cornishman died in 1986 aged 27.
After retiring in the mid-1970s, Mary became an established equestrian teacher and was also a member of the British equestrian selection committee. For her services to her sport she was awarded the MBE.
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HESTER, Carl Rupert
Born: 29 June 1967, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England
Olympics Competed In: 4 (1992, 2000, 2004, 2012)
Olympic Medals:
2012 Gold - Equestrian (Team dressage)
Twenty years after making his Olympic debut Carl Hester must have been wondering if that Olympic medal was going to elude him when he took part in his fourth Games in 2012..
In his three previous Games, a seventh place in the team competition had been his best result but, with Laura Bechtolsheimer and Charlotte Dujardin they beat their rivals into second place to capture that much sought after medal - and it turned out to be gold. Sadly, Carl could not match his two female team-mates and win a second medal in the individual event having to settle for a personal best fifth place,
Although born in North London, Carl moved to the Channel Island of Sark when he was four. The island had no cars so horses were a way of life, and a mode of transport. Naturally, Carl soon learned to ride at an early age and his first form of transport was a donkey called Jacko that he used to ride to the village shop to collect groceries.
Horses and carriages were popular with tourists in the summer month and Carl earned some extra pocket money taking them around the island.
With little opportunity of permanent work on Sark, Carl left at the age of 16 after finding a job advertised in Horse and Hound. It involved working at the Fortune Centre of Riding Therapy in Christchurch, Dorset. It was where adults with learning and physical difficulties could go to enjoy the freedom of horse riding.
Originally Carl wanted to be an eventer but he switched to dressage and it was on one of the Fortune Centre's horses Jolly Dolly that he won the 1985 Young Dressage Championship.
Carl's career received a major boost when he went to work at Dr Bechtolsheimer's yard in 1989 and he had the opportunity to ride high calibre horses for the first time. Dr. B was the father of the young Laura Bechtolsheimer who would became Carl's gold medal winning team-mate at London 2012.
Wwhilst with Dr.B he went to his first World Championships in 1990, the Europeans in 1991 and then in 1992 he became the youngest Briton to compete in the dressage at the Olympics.
He stayed with Dr.B for three years and then went into partnership with Kate Carter before opening his own Gloucestershire yard in 2004.
Carl made his second Olympic appearance in 2000 at Sydney and at Athens in 2004 he appeared in his third Games. His horses were not ready for the 2008 Beijing Games but in 2009 he won his first major medal when he won team silver at the European Championships at Windsor and he also won team silver at the 2010 World Equestrian Games
But 2011 would be Carl's best season prior to his 2012 Olympic triumph when, with his now famous Olympic-winning female partners, Charlotte Dujardin and Laura Bechtolsheimer, the three of them won the European Championships gold medal and Carl took home two individual silver medals.
As acknowledgement of his outstanding year in 2011 The Briitsh Olympic Association named Carl as the Equestrian Athlete of the Year.
Following his 2012 Olympic triumph Carl was honoured with the MBE in the 2013 New Year Honours list. Also in 2013 he won a bronze medal in the team event at the European Championships and in September he won his 66th national dressage championship aboard Fine Time at Stoneleigh, Warwickshire.
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HILL, Albert Edwin "Bertie"
Born: 7 February 1927, Swimbridge, Devon, England
Died: 5 August 2005, South Molton, Devon, England
Olympics Competed In: 3 (1952, 1956, 1960)
Olympic Medals:
1956 Gold - Equestrian (Team eventing)
Bertie Hill was a great natural horseman and had the honour of representing the British eventing team at three consecutive Olympics and at Stockholm in 1956 Laurence Rook, Frank Weldon and Hill won a team gold medal. Bertie rode the Queen's horse Countryman III.
Hill bought Countryman off a dealer who reckoned the horse was 'unrideable'. But Hill knew his way around a difficult horse better than most and he ironed out the problems. He sold the horse to a syndicate led by the Queen but kept custody of Countryman and also retained the right to ride him.
Hill was born at Birch Farm, Swimbridge on Exmoor, and spent his entire life in the area. He first started hunting with the Devon and Somerset Staghounds at the age of four. When he started school a year later he rode his pony 'Joe' the three miles to school each day. When he moved on to the 'big school' it meant taking short cuts across farmers' land but, whilst it annoyed the farmers, it improved Bertie's jumping skills!
Bertie left school at 15 to work in his father's farm during the war. After the war he was in demand as an amateur jockey in point-to-point races. But he soon attracted attention from Tony Collings, the owner of the Porlock Vale Riding School.
Collings had been asked to put together a British three day eventing team for the 1952 Olympics and Hill made the team. Riding Stella, he was the highest placed Briton in seventh place in the individual event.
The following year he won the first of three consecutive European Eventing Championship team gold medals and in 1954 Bertie made it a team and individual double.
Sadly, Collings would not get another chance to put an Olympic team together again because he lost his life in April 1954 when the Comet aircraft he was traveling on crashed into the Mediterranean off the coat of Italy.
Bertie appeared in his third successive Olympics at Rome in 1960 but he could not emulate his gold medal winning performance of four years earlier and finished fourth in the team event riding Wild Venture. The British team missed out on a bronze medal by less than one point.
In the early 1960s Bertie and his wife Mary started the Rapscott School of Equitation at their Exmoor farm. Bertie turned out to be an excellent instructor and he was asked to train the British eventing team for the 1968 Olympics when he produced the gold medal winning team and the individual silver medalist in Derek Allhusen.
In later years, both Princess Anne and Mark Phillips were students at Rapscott.
As a yongster Bertie won many point-to-point races and had a brief flirtation with National Hunt racing and enjoyed a couple of wins at Wincanton. His daughter Sarah married the well known race horse trainer Philip Hobbs, who trained 2003 Champion Hurdle winner Rooster Booster, while son Tony was a member of the junior British eventing team and was also a successful point-to-point jockey. He carried on the business at Rapscott after his father's death in 2005.
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JONES, Reuben Samuel "Ben"
Born: 19 October 1932, Newport, Shropshire, England
Died: 3 January 1990, Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, England
Olympics Competed In: 2 (1964, 1968)
Olympic Medals:
1968 Gold - Equestrian (Team eventing)
After an unsuccessful Olympic debut in 1964, Ben Jones finished fifth on The Poacher in the individual three day event competition at the 1968 Mexico Olympics. And with members of the British team occupying three of the first five individual places it is no surprise that they won the team gold medal. Ben's team-mates that day were Derek Allhusen, Richard Meade and Jane Bullen.
Ben had previously been a member of the gold medal winning British team at the European Eventing Championships at Punchestown, Ireland in 1967, and was also in the team that retained their title in France two years later.
The son of Shropshire fish and chip shop proprietors, Ben always had ambitions to become a jockey but grew too tall so he decided to join the Army and work with horses which he did whilst serving with the Royal Horse Artillery and the Royal Army Veterinary Corps. He eventually became the Equitation Officer in charge of training at the RAVC Remount Depot in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire.
Shortly after leaving the Army Ben was killed in a tragic accident whilst schooling a young horse at Melton in 1990.
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LAW, Leslie Francis
Born: 5 May 1965, Hereford, Herefordshire, England
Olympics Competed In: 2 (2000, 2004)
Olympic Medals:
2000 Silver - Equestrian (Team eventing)
2004 Gold - Equestrian (Individual eventing)
2004 Silver - Equestrian (Team eventing)
Leslie Law started horse riding at the age of 10 so he could compete with his brother Graham, who also became a successful three day eventer. The two brothers dispelled the myth that you had to come from a privileged background to be successful at equestrianism because they grew up in a council house.
At Athens in 2004 Leslie was the first Briton since Richard Meade in 1972 to win the individual Olympic three day event gold medal. But the event was not without its controversies.
Bettina Hoy of Germany had an illegal start, crossing the start line twice before one of the jumping rounds, and was penalized 14 points. But those points were later rescinded and at the end of the two rounds of jumping, Hoy was in the gold medal position with Leslie Law in second place after two faultless rounds on his horse Shear L'Eau.
However, two days after the competition the British, French and American teams put in appeals and after a two and a half hour meeting at the Holiday Inn, Athens, the Council of Arbitration for Sport ruled that that the penalty imposed on Hoy should stand and she was relegated to ninth place with Law being promoted into the gold medal position and fellow Briton Pippa Funnell moving up to take the bronze medal. It also elevated the British team to the silver medal position.
Law learned of his gold medal by telephone while taking part in a novice horse trials event at Solihull near Birmingham. In comparison, Hoy was informed that she had lost her gold medal by a pilot aboard her Lufthansa flight back to Germany from Athens.
Leslie was presented with his gold medal by the Princess Royal while attending a reception at Buckingham Palace for the 2004 British Olympic medalists two months after he should have stood on the winners podium in Athens.
Law won his first Olympic medal, a team silver in 2000 when he rode Shear H20, a full brother of Shear L'eau. The pair teamed up again to be part of the British team that won the 2001 European Championships at Pau, in France and at Jerez in Spain the following year they won a bronze medal at the World Championships.
A second European team gold came in 2003 but this time Law rode Shear L'eau, and the year after their Olympic triumph it was a third successive gold medal when Law and Shear L'eau won another European team gold in 2005.
Awarded the MBE in the 2005 New Year Honours list, Leslie announced in November that year that he was moving to the United States. In America he continued to enjoy success as a rider but also he earned a reputation as a well respected trainer and with his wife Lesley Grant, a Canadian three day eventer, they established Law Eventing with bases in Florida and Virginia.
Leslie and Lesley got married on the beach on the Caribbean island of Aruba in December 2007.
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LLEWELLYN, Henry Morton "Harry"
Born: 18 July 1911, Aberdare, Glamorgan, Wales
Died: 15 November 1999, Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, Wales
Olympics Competed In: 2 (1948, 1952)
Olympic Medals:
1948 Bronze - Equestrian (Team jumping)
1952 Gold - Equestrian (Team jumping)
Probably the best known horse and rider combination in the history of British show jumping is that of Foxhunter and Harry Llewellyn.
The pair started jumping together after Llewellyn bought the six-year-old bay gelding for £1,500 in 1947. And between then and 1955 when Foxhunter was retired, they won 78 international competitions, including the King George V Gold Cup three times, a bronze medal at the 1948 Olympics and team gold in 1952.
Harry was the son of Sir David Llewellyn, a South Wales colliery owner. Like his older brother, Harry was educated at Oundle and then Cambridge University. After graduating he followed his father into the coal industry and also followed his father's love of horses.
Before he turned his attention to serious show jumping, Llewellyn was a National Hunt jockey and between 1931 and his last race at Fontwell Park in March 1949, he won 60 races. His most outstanding performance was on Ego on his debut in the Grand National in 1936 when he finished second to the legendary Reynoldstown, who won the race for the second time. Ego and Llewellyn started the 1937 race as favourites but could only finish fourth.
The war years then intervened and Llewellyn served with the Warwickshire Yeomanry, taking part in many campaigns across Europe and Africa and in 1942 he joined General Montgomery's staff until the end of the War, and spent a lot of his time at the Eight Army Headquarters.
He rose to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He was twice mentioned in Dispatches, was honoured with the OBE in 1944 and also received the US Legion of Merit.
After the war Llewellyn had some show jumping success on his horse Kilgeddin but it was after he bought Foxhunter that Llewellyn's fortunes turned around and in 1948, while he was still racing under National Hunt rules, he and Foxhunter won a bronze medal in the Olympic Games on home soil. It was a great performance form a horse who was just seven years of age.
Llewellyn and Foxhunter won the first of three King George V Gold Cups at Hickstead in 1948 and the remain the only pairing to win the prestigious event three times.
But Llewellyn and Foxhunter saved their best for the 1952 Oltympics in Helsinki.
After the first round Llewellyn had incurred 16.75 faults and the British team were lying in fifth place. Llewellyn admits that both he and his horse were not prepared correctly but after a break in between rounds he turned it all around in dramatic fashion.
When Foxhunter came into the arena Llewellyn knew that they could have one fence down and Britain would still manage to secure victory. But Foxhunter sensed the occasion and the pair of them jumped a perfect clear round. The win came on the final day of the Games and the British team of Llewellyn, Wilf White and Duggie Stewart won Britain's first and only gold medal of the 1952 Olympics.
Harry had taken four years away from the coal business to concentrate on his show jumping. Foxhunter retired in 1955 and Lewellyn started farming in his beloved Wales. He also set up the successful Revel stud of Welsh Mountain ponies, and because of the post-war nationalization of the coal industry he had to diversify his business interests and developed engineering and brewing interests as well as being one of the founders of Television Wales and West. He also started a chain of cafés called The Foxhunter Café
In addition to his OBE, Harry was honoured with the CBE in 1953 and was Knighted in the 1977 Silver Jubilee Honours list. He was the chairman of the British Show Jumping Association from 1967 to 1969 and from 1976 to 1980 he was President of the British Equestrian Federation.
In 1978 on the death of his brother he inherited the family title and became the Third Baron Llewellyn of Bwllfa, Glamorgan - a title which subsequently fell to his famous sons Dai and Roddy Llewellyn.
Harry Llewellyn died in 1999 six days before the 40th anniversary of Foxunter's passing, and his ashes were spread over Foxhunter's burial place close to the family home near Abergavenny.
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MAHER, Benjamin Richard
Born: 30 January 1983, Enfield, London
Olympics Competed In: 2 (2008, 2012)
Olympic Medals:
2012 Gold - Equestrian (Team jumping)
Ben Maher started riding at the age of eight and after leaving school he started training with the legendary Liz Edgar before moving to Switzerland to further his career under the guidance of Swiss Olympic medallist Beat Mändli.
Ben soon started attracting attention and in 2005, at the age of 22, he won the Hickstead Derby and not long afterwards he overtook some established names to become Britain's number one rider.
He made his Olympic debut at Beijing in 2008 riding Rollette and represented Britain again at the 2009 European Championships at Windsor partnering Robin Hood W but they failed to win medal. He collected his first major international medal at the 2011 Europeans at Madrid when he won a team silver riding Tripple X III, a horse he bred himself and co-owned.
The pair of them were to go on to enjoy greater success 12 months later when Maher, Nick Skelton, Scott Brash and Peter Charles captured Great Britain's first Olympic show jumping gold medal since 1952 and only their second ever jumping gold. Maher finished joint ninth in the individual event.
Ben's success continued into 2013 when he won the prestigious King George V Cup at Hickstead on Tripple X and three weeks later, riding Cella, he was in the British team that won gold at the European Championships in Denmark. He was narrowly beaten by Frenchman Roger Yves Bost for the individual gold medal.
Maher went into the final day leading with no faults but he had one fence down in the first of the two rounds on the last day. Bost only incurred a time fault. Maher then jumped clear in the final round but so too did his French rival who ran out the winner with 1.58 faults to Ben's four faults. Britain's Scott Brash was third.
Ben received the MBE in the 2013 New Year Honours list.
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MEADE, Richard John Hannay
Born: 4 December 1938, Chepstow, Monmouthshire, Wales
Died: 8 January 2015, West Littleton, Gloucestershure, England
Olympics Competed In: 4 (1964, 1968, 1972, 1976)
Olympic Medals:
1968 Gold - Equestrian (Team eventing)
1972 Gold - Equestrian (Team eventing)
1972 Gold - Equestrian (Individual eventing)
With three gold medals to his name, Richard Meade is Britain's most successful equestrian rider of all time. He was the first Briton to win an individual equestrian gold medal and is now one of only three to have done so. The others being Leslie Law (Eventing 2004) and Charlotte Dujardin (Dressage 2012)
Meade was born into a horse-loving family and his parents both rode with the Curre Hunt at Itton, Monmouthshire. Richard started riding at seven and was also soon riding with the Curre Foxhounds, and at 10 he attended his first Badminton Horse Trials and he was inspired to take up the sport that day.
One of his heroes was fellow Welshman Harry Llewellyn and when Richard was 15 he won the Pony Club Boys' Championship on a horse loaned to him by Llewellyn.
Richard did his National Service with the 11th Hussars and on completion in 1960 he went to Magdalene College, Cambridge to study for an engineering degree. He dovetailed his studies with hunting and point-to-pointing at University.
While at Cambridge he also acquired a young Irish horse called Barberry which he collected off a train from Ireland at Euston Station and took him up to Cambridge!
And it was Barberry that gave Meade his first major three day eventing triumph when they won the Burghley Horse Trials in 1964, the same year that Richard made his Olympic debut. The following year Meade and Barberry collected a bronze medal after Britain finished third in the European Championships at Moscow.
At the World Championships at Burghley in 1966 Meade and Barberry won the individual silver medal, finishing second to the Argentinian Carlos Moratorio. But they went one better at the 1967 European Championships at Punchestown when they won team gold.
Richard made has second Olympic appearance at Mexico City in 1968 and riding Cornishman V, loaned to him by Mary Gordon-Watson who could not make the Games following a fall, Meade won the first of his three gold medals as part of the winning British team.
When Gordon-Watson was fit again, Richard had to find a new partner and in The Poacher he established a new partnership that would go on to win many events including Badminton in 1970 and that same year the world team title at Puncehstown. Meade and The Poacher also won the silver medal in the individual event which was won, ironically, by Mary Gardon-Watson and Cornishman.
Meade enjoyed one more major success on The Poacher when he won his second successive team gold medal at the European Championships at Burghley in 1971 but it was the following year the Richard Meade cemented his name into British Olympic equestrian history when he won two gold medals at the Munich Games.
With team-mates Mary Gordon-Watson, on Cornishman (who was to win his second Olympic gold), Bridget Parker and Mark Phillips, the four won the team god medal at Munich and Richard also captured the individual gold medal with his new partner, Laurieston, a horse bred by Derek Allhusen.
Meade won a bronze medal in Wayfarer II at the 1973 European Championships and a silver at the World Championships at Burghley the following year. He finished fourth in the individual competition at the 1976 Montreal Olympics and when Britain boycotted the 1980 Moscow Games his Olympic career ended, but the winning wasn't over because with his new horse Kilcashel he won the team gold at the 1981 European and 1982 World Championships. Meade also won Badminton for the second time in 1982, this time riding Speculator III.
Richard announced he was calling it a day in December 1986 after the retirement of his leading horse Kilcashel. He later served as President of the British Equestrian Federation between 1989 and 1992.
Like his father before him Richard was a close friend of the Royal Family and when his son James got married in 2013 the Princes William and Harry both attended the wedding. Another one of Richard's sons, Harry, is an excellent eventer and was in the Great Britain team that won the silver medal at the 2014 World Championships in Normandy.
For his services to his sport Richard was honoured with the OBEin 1974.
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PARKER, Bridget M
Born: 5 January 1939, Northumberland, England
Olympics Competed In: 1 (1972)
Olympic Medals:
1972 Gold - Equestrian (Team eventing)
Bridget Parker went to Munich for the 1972 Olympics as a traveling reserve for the three day event team, but on the morning of the event she was woken at six o'clock and told she was in the team.
Debbie West's Baccarat had been withdrawn due to the hard going and Bridget and Cornish Gold were called up in their place. West and Baccarat had won the individual silver medal at the 1971 European Championships at Burghley behind Princess Anne on Doublet.
Bridget finished tenth in the individual event at the Munich Olymoics and was the third best scoring member of the British team, which also included Mark Phillips, Richard Meade and Mary Gordon-Watson. They beat the Americans by nearly 85 points to win the gold medal and Bridget's performance was described by The Times as one of the greatest sporting achievements of all time.
Bridget and Cornish Gold went on to win a team silver medal at the 1974 World Championships at Burghley when Meade and Phillips were again in the team with her.
In 1992 Bridget succeeded Jane Holderness-Roddam as chairman of the British Horse Trials senior selection committee.
Although she was born in Northumberland, Bridget moved to Frome in the late 1960s when her husband retired from the Army and the couple settled in Somerset.
There was a call by local people to give her the freedom of Frome shortly before the 2012 Olympics. After all, she is Frome's only Olympic gold medalist and, along with Jenson Button, is the town's best known sportsperson.
Bridget's daughter Katie was a junior champion and was a member of the British team that won the silver medal at the 1984 Junior European Eventing Championships in Poland.
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PHILLIPS, Mark
Born: 22 September 1948, Tetbury, Gloucestershire, England
Olympics Competed In: 2 (1972, 1988)
Olympic Medals:
1972 Gold - Equestrian (Team eventing)
1988 Silver - Equestrian (Team eventing)
Captain Mark Phillips was educated at Marlborough College before going to Sandhurst from where he passed out and joined the Queen's Dragoon Guards in 1969. His father also served in the (King's) Dragoon Guards and was awarded the Military Cross (MC). Mark spent nearly nine years in the Army before retiring in 1978.
A talented horseman he competed in three-day events with The Beaufort Hunt Pony Club Team for five years in the 1960s. By 1968 he was considered good enough to be selected as a reserve for the British team at the Mexico Olympics.
He never made the team but two years later, and riding Chicago, he was a member of the British gold medal winning team at the World Championships at Punchestown. And the following year, in 1971, he was again in the successful team that won the European Champion ships at Burghley riding Great Ovation.
It was on Great Ovation that Mark enjoyed his greatest moment when he was in the British team that won the 1972 Olympic gold medal at Munich along with Richard Meade, Mary Gordon-Watson and Bridget Parker.
Phillips won a silver medal at the 1974 World Championships riding Columbus and in 1988 was called up for the British team for the Seoul Olympics and won a silver medal on Cartier.
He retired from competitive riding after the 1988 Olympics and turned his attentions to course designing and training. He was responsible for designing the course for the Burghley Horse Trials on many occasions since 1989. Mark won Burghley just once, on Great Ovation in 1973. However, he won Badminton four times, on Great Ovation in 1971 and 1972, on Columbus in 1974 and on Lincoln in 1981.
Mark's first wife Princess Anne was part of the 1976 British eventing team at the Montreal Olympics and their daughter Zara won a silver medal in the British team at the London Olympics in 2012.
Her Majesty the Queen bought Gatcombe Park for Ann and Mark and they developed it into a well known eventing course and each August the Festival of British Eventing attracts top class riders from all over the world to the Gloucestershire course.
Mark's second wife, Hawaiian-born Sandy Pfleuger, was a member of the US dressage team at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. She had finished second to Mark at Badminton in 1981. She was later a coach to the US dressage team and Mark became the Chef d'Equipe of the United States Eventing Federation. He also became a well respected equestrian journalist.
In addition to his military honours, Phillips was honoured with the Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO).
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ROOK, Arthur Laurence
Born: 26 May 1921, Bingham, Nottinghamshire, England
Died: 30 September 1989, Southwark, London
Olympics Competed In: 2 (1952, 1956)
Olympic Medals:
1956 Gold - Equestrian (Team eventing)
Laurence Rook was known as 'The Galloping Major' because of his rank attained with the Royal Horse Guards. He served with the Guards until 1954 and in 1945 he was awarded the Military Cross (MC) for his bravery in crossing a minefield in Italy the previous year to capture a German warrant officer.
Rook was first selected for the Olympic Games three day event team in 1952 with his horse Starlight XV but they came home from Helsinki empty handed. But the following year was to mark the start of four memorable seasons for Laurence Rook.
Badminton played host to the first European Eventing Championships in 1953 and Rook, and Starlight, won gold in both the team and individual events. It was the first of three successive team golds as Rook was in the winning British team again in 1954 and 1955.
And to round off four memorable years, Rook, on Venture Gold, Frank Weldon and Bertie Hill made up the team than won Britain's first ever Olympic eventing gold medal at Stockholm in 1956.
After he retired from the Army, Rook took up farming but maintained his contact with his sport after his competitive days and he served on Britain's Horse Trials Committee from 1973 to 1980. He is remembered with the Laurence Rook Trophy which is presented at Badminton each year to the best British rider who had not previously competed at Badminton.
And in 2012 he was further honoured when Nottingham's Castle Rock Brewery dedicated The Major Arthur Laurence Rook Celebration Ale - one of four Celebration Ales brewed each year to celebrate the life and work of local heroes and heroines.
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SKELTON, Nicholas David "Nick"
Born: 30 December 1957, Bedworth, Warwickshire, England
Olympics Competed In: 6 (1988,1992, 1996, 2004, 2008, 2012)
Olympic Medals:
2012 Gold - Equestrian (Team jumping)
At the age of 54, Nick Skelton was selected for the British jumping team at the 2012 Olympics and after five previous Olympic appearances without a single medal, he must have thought that his illustrious career was going to end without him winning the sport's ultimate prize.
But how wrong he was, because he was the inspiration to the other members of the team; Ben Maher, Scott Brash and Peter Charles, as Skelton jumped five clear rounds out of five on Big Star, including one in the jump-off,to secure the gold medal ahead of Netherlands.
It was to be the culmination of a show jumping career that had spanned nearly 40 years, and earned him around £7 million in prizemoney. He has more than 1,200 wins to his credit including 60 Grand Prix wins and more than 150 appearances for the Great Britain team. He has probably won more events on more different horses than any other person in the sport.
Skelton was born at Bedworth in Warwickshire, a little over a mile from the home of the Premier Sheet Metal Company who, ironically, made the 2012 Olympic torches.
Nick was brought up with horses as his father served in the Veterinary Corps in the Army and Nick sat on his first horse at 18 months old and started riding when he was three. His first horse was a Welsh mountain pony called Oxo, who lived until he was 39 and died at Nick's Warwickshire home.
Nick went to work with Liz and Ted Edgar when he was 14 and in 1974, when only 16, he was part of the Great Britain team that won the silver medal at the Junior European Championships and the following year Nick won another team silver and also the individual gold medal, his first major honour in the sport.
Nick has had some memorable moments throughout his career and one of his first was in setting a British Puissance (high jump) record on Lastic at Olympia in 1978 when the pair of them went over a fence measuring 7 feet 7 and 5/16 th inches. The record still stood at the beginning of 2014.
He won a team silver medal at the 1980 Alternative Olympic Games in Rotterdam after the British team boycotted the Moscow Olympics and at the 1982 World Championships he was part of the team that won the bronze medal.
His first major senior international title was a team gold medal at the 1985 European Championships. Skelton and the British team repeated the feat in 1987 and 1989 and Nick also won the individual bronze medal on Apollo in 1987.
Skelton won the first of three successive Hickstead Derbies on J Nick in 1987 and that hat-trick of wins was regarded by him as his greatest achievement in the sport - until his Olympic triumph in 2012, of course.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s Nick won five World Championship medals, seven European Championship medals, including three gold, three Hickstead Derby wins, four King George V Gold Cups at the Horse of the Year Show and in 1995 he was the World Cup Final winner on Dollar Girl.
However, the career of Nick Skelton looked over in 2001.
Riding a horse called Lalique at the Parkgate Show near Chester in September, the pair jumped well for the first five fences but then at the sixth, a triple, Lalique got it wrong and landed on the fence, throwing Nick into the air and he landed on his head. He broke his neck and the initial thought was that he would be paralysed but, after being air-ambulanced to Liverpool, it was revealed that he was not paralysed despite suffering a similar injury to that sustained by actor Christopher Reeve. However, Nick was told his jumping career was over and he announced his retirement in February 2001.
He remained in the sport in various roles but he really wanted to get back into the saddle and compete again and in April 2002 he announced that he was coming out of retirement after a scan showed he was alright to do so. During his retirement Nick bought the Durham Ox public house in Shrewley, Warwickshire and the same week that he announced he was returning to jumping he re-opened the pub after refurbishment.
In the year of his return, Nick got back to winning ways with two Grand Prix wins on Arko, both in Portugal. He enjoyed 10 more Grand Prix wins and six Nation's Cup victories before winning both a team and individual bronze medal on Carlo at the 2011 European Championships in Madrid.
Twelve months later, and 24 years after his first attempt, Nick Skelton won that elusive Olympic gold medal in the team event at London 2012 and he also came close to gold on Big Star in the individual but a fence down in the final round cost him the chance of a jump-off with the Swiss rider Steve Guerdat.
At the age of seven Skelton went to his first Horse of the Year Show and sat on the former Grand National winner Nicolaus Silver. From that day he wanted to be a National Hunt jockey but it was not to be and it remains one of Nick's disappointments that he never tried the sport, but he follows it very closely thanks to his two sons.
His oldest son Dan has established himself as a promising National Hunt trainer, and younger son Harry is an established jockey and won the 2009 Irish Grand National on Niche Market at the age of 19 - the youngest winner of the race.
Skelton was honoured with the OBE in the 2012 Birthday Honours list.
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STEWART, Douglas Norman "Duggie"
Born: 24 June 1913, Doonholm, Ayrshire, Scotland
Died: 25 July 1991, Midlem, nr Selkirk, Roxburghshire, Scotland
Olympics competed in: 2 (1948, 1952)
Olympic medals: 1
952 Gold - Equestrian (Team show jumping)
Duggie Stewart made his Olympic debut in 1948 as a member of the British three day event team but his horse Dark Seal pulled up lame in the cross country stage of the competition.
When he made his second Olympic appearance four years later, he was then in the British show jumping team, and along with Harry Llewellyn and Wilf White, he won Britain's only gold medal of the Helsinki Games, and on the very last day. Riding Aherlow, Duggie also finished joint 12th in the individual competition - the 12 points he accrued in the first round cost him dearly.
White, Llewellyn and Stewart won Britain's first ever Olympic show jumping gold medal, their next was to be 60 years later at London 2012.
Stewart was educated at Rugby School and then at the Sandhurst Military Academy from where he joined the Royal Scots Greys in 1933 and he went on to reach the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.
The Royal Scots Greys is a cavalry regiment with a long and proud history, and they lead the charge at the Battle of Waterloo.
During his time in the Army, Stewart was awarded the Military Cross with Bar and Distinguished Service Order (DSO). After retiring from the Army in 1954 he took up farming in Oxfordshire and then later in the Scottish Borders.
Stewart also took up flying and en route from Scotland to visit his Lloyds underwriter in 1963 he circled over a Buckinghamshire farmhouse in order to pinpoint his location on a map. Unknown to him it was the farmhouse where the Great Train Robbers were holding up, and thinking they had been discovered and were being observed, they fled in the early hours of the next morning. In haste, they left behind many items which enabled the police to eventually track down several members of the gang.
Stewart's brother-in-law Alec Scott was in the British bronze medal winning eventing team at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. He married Stewart's sister Rhona in 1937.
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WELDON, Francis William Charles
Born: 2 August 1913, Bombay (now Mumbai), India
Died: 21 September 1993, Sodbury, Gloucestershire, England
Olympics competed in: 2 (1956, 1960)
Olympic medals:
1956 Gold - Equestrian (Team eventing)
1956 Bronze - Equestrian (Individual eventing)
Frank Weldon maybe be remembered as an accomplished horseman and having a great relationship with the horse Kilbarry, but he is equally noted for his involvement with the Badminton Horse Trials for more than 36 years.
Weldon was also the first British rider to win an individual Olympic equestrian medal when he and Kilbarry won the bronze medal at the 1956 Stockholm Olympics. They were also a member of the gold medal winning team, along with Laurence Rook and Bertie Hill. Weldon and Hill were also in the team that lost out on the bronze medal to the French at Rome, by half a point, four years later.
The son of a barrister, Weldon was born in India but was educated a Wellington School and the Royal Military College in Woolwich before getting a commission into the Royal Artillery. He was awarded the Military Cross in 1940 but was captured shortly afterwards and spent the next five years in German prisoner of war camps, including the legendary Colditz Castle. He escaped three times, but never got out of Germany. And on another attempt he turned back to help a colleague who got trapped in a tunnel. For his action, Weldon was awarded an MBE.
After the war Weldon commanded the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery and his three day eventing partner Kilbarry did active service with him. Lieutenant Colonel Weldon was to play a significant role in the funerals of King George VI and Queen Mary as well as the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
He had taken up eventing in 1951 on a horse called Liza Mandy but it was only after forming a partnership with Kilbarry that he enjoyed success.
They were part of the British team that won the first ever European Eventing Championships at Badminton in 1953. Weldon also won the individual silver medal. The pair repeated their medal haul in 1954 and in 1955 Weldon and Kilbarry won gold in both the team and individual competitions when the Championships were geld at Windsor.
Having won his first Badminton on Kilbarry in 1955 (when it was held at Windsor) they won it again in 1956 and then followed it with Olympic success as Weldon became the first person to win Badminton and an Olympic gold medal in the same year - a feat since equalled by Mark Phillips in 1972.
The Olympic year started off well with Weldon winning the Royal Artillery Gold Cup at Sandown Park on Snowshill Jim as he proved he was also a good steeplechaser. The pair retained the Cup the following year.
Weldon won two more European medals in 1959, taking his tally to eight, when he won team silver and also individual silver at Harewood on Samuel Johnson.
After retiring from the Army and competitive eventing, Weldon was asked by the Duke of Beaufort to re-design the Badminton cross country course in 1964. The following year he replaced Gordon Cox Cox (no, not an error, that was his name) as the director of Badminton Horse Trials and stayed until 1988 He is widely acknowledged as the man who brought the Badminton Trials up to the high standard they are today. Weldon was associated the Trials as a competitor, official and director for 36 years.
The Frank Weldon Trophy is presented at Badminton each year to the youngest British-owned horse finishing in the top 12 at the Trials.
In addition to his MC and MBE, Frank Weldon also became a Member of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO) in 1952.
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WHITE, Wilfrid (*) Harry
Born: 30 March 1904, Bickerton, Cheshire, England
Died: 21 November 1995, Isle of Man
Olympics competed in: 2 (1952, 1956)
Olympic medals:
1952 Gold - Equestrian (Team show jumping)
1956 Bronze - Equestrian (Team show jumping)
Wilf White was a member of the first British team to win an Olympic equestrian gold medal when White, Duggie Stewart and Harry Llewellyn won the show jumping gold at Helsinki in 1952. But White could have come away from the Games with two gold medals.
In he individual competition his horse Nizefala, one of the greatest horses in show jumping history, was adjudged to have put a foot in one of the water jumps and he was penalized four faults. Team captain Harry Llewellyn thought the decision was wrong but any possibility of an objection was ruled out upon the advice of the Duke of Edinburgh, and it was taken on the chin. White would have been in the gold medal position after the two rounds but, instead, his four points meant he went into a five horse jump-off for the medal positions, and sadly he came fifth.
However, at Stockholm four years later White and Nizefela did get their individual medal when they came third.
Wilf White was one of eight children and the son of a Cheshire farmer. He left home at 15 and started show jumping mostly in South Wales at the age of 17 on a horse called Desire. He was never given any professional training but he had the natural ability to train and ride horses and soon brought the previously difficult to handle Desire under control.
He returned home and in 1946 acquired the four-year-old Lincolnshire-bred bay gelding Nizefela - whose name came from a gypsy who commented: 'what a nice fella you have there" shortly after White had made the purchase.
A great character, the horse was well known for his extravagant kick-back as he cleared each fence. Nizefela and White were partners in 12 British Nations Cup winning teams.
White served on the executive committee of the British Show Jumping Association and was a steward at the Royal Show for 21 years. He was awarded the OBE in 1958 for his services to show jumping.
He continued the family tradition and became the third generation to run the 60 acre dairy farm at Malpas, Cheshire where they also commercially made cheese.
Quietly spoken, White moved to the Isle of Man for his retirement years with his second wife Mary in 1980. He died there in 1995 but his ashes were taken back to his Cheshire home where Nizefela was buried, and they were were laid to rest together
(*) Most sources state his first name is Wilfred but his birth registration shows his name as Wilfrid, as does the 1911 Census Record.
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