Carl Hester announces retirement as Lottie Fry claims another bronze for GB equestrian team

At this Olympics we have seen 16-year-old gymnasts, 18-year-old swimmers, teenagers tearing across track, field and BMX park. No wonder that Team GB’s oldest and most experienced member has been feeling his age. Now, at 58, the equestrian Carl Hester has announced that he will not be trying to compete in Los Angeles. His time, he reckons, has been called.

“It’s the perfect way to go out,” he said after he had come sixth in the individual freestyle dressage competition at Versailles. “It was probably the best freestyle I’ve ever done. Why should I not retire after that? There’s two ways of looking at it. Either I’m getting better or I should get out now before it all goes downhill.”

After seven Olympic Games, in which he earned the full set of gold, silver and bronze medals, get out now is what he has decided to do. Not that there were any Andy Murray style waterworks, no drama or choreography about his departure. He just told reporters after his competition that he had had enough, preferring to go back to what he describes as his day job: training horses and riders for dressage competition.

“This feeling you have for days on end before competing it gets to you eventually, waking up at three in the morning eyes open,” he said. “Admittedly there is some adrenalin rush after competing like that. I just hope I don’t get done for speeding driving home.”

Hester accepted too that the crisis loaded on to his sport by the release of an old video of his friend, mentee and training partner Charlotte Dujardin abusing her horse had cast a dark shadow across the week.

“It has been the longest few days of my career,” he said.

Though clearly the insistence its detractors have made that Dujardin’s behaviour is symptomatic of a sport concealing unacceptable levels of abuse in its processes, had done little to put off the crowd at Versailles. Once again the beautiful arena built in the park of the old chateau was packed. Not least with celebrity Olympic attendees. After Snoop Dogg’s unlikely appearance there on Sunday, Ryan Gosling turned up to watch the trotting and cantering, the passages and pirouettes. Which seems appropriate: there is almost certainly a Barbie and Ken dressage clothes set. And if not, they could just borrow Snoop’s outfit.

Reynolds was lucky to be there to witness to Hester’s last ever competitive round. The veteran had promised he was going to go out to a thoroughly modern musical accompaniment. Though if anyone was expecting him to turn techno, they were disappointed. He and his horse Fame did their turn soundtracked by, among others, Michael Buble and Mary Hopkin. Down with the kids, or what?

Hester was not the only one getting modern in his choice of music. Becky Moody in her first Games, earned eighth place backed largely by Tom Jones, her horse Jagerbomb dancing to Sex Bomb. But the best result achieved by a Briton was that by Lottie Fry, who picked up her second bronze in two days, matching the individual award to the team return.

It was a tense wait for Fry to gain her reward. After her excellent round on Glamourdale, she had gone into second place behind the veteran German Isabell Wurth. But there were still four competitors left to go, all of whom had better qualification marks than her. The chances, she accepted, were that she might be evicted from the podium altogether. So she decided not to watch. As it happened, only one of those who followed, the German Jessica von Bredow-Werndl, bettered her (and indeed Wurth) to take gold.

“I was on my way back to the stables when I heard a cheer, so I thought I’d better check the results,” she says. “It was a lovely feeling.”

It was a feeling shared. For Hester, watching Fry pick up her medal there was real emotion. It brought his career to a nicely circular conclusion. Because she is the daughter of the late Laura Fry, who he competed with at the Barcelona Olympics back in 1992. Start and finish with a Fry, he smiled. And he was off, after completing his seventh Games.

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