Legacy is thrown around readily in the sporting context but it is hard to picture a more fitting personification than Britain’s next great dressage sensation Lottie Fry.
A decade ago, she was a teenager watching Charlotte Dujardin win Olympic gold in London. At the time, Fry’s mother Laura, who had competed at Barcelona 1992, had just a couple of months left to live after being diagnosed with breast cancer.
That within two years, Fry was prepared to up sticks and move to the Netherlands at 18 says a lot about her character. The combination of ambition and determination that runs through her veins is the perfect recipe to reach the top.
And after winning Olympic bronze in Tokyo in 2021, on the same team as Carl Hester, who had both trained and competed with her mother, Fry has taken the next step this year.
In Denmark last month, she won two gold medals at the World Championships, including joining the exclusive 90 percent club for her performance in the individual freestyle with a dazzling performance on horse Glamourdale.
With that result, she follows in the footsteps of Dujardin as Britain’s second-ever individual dressage world champion and it is clear that the history of the sport has a personal resonance.
She explained: “To think that back in 2012 I was 15 or 16, sat in front of the TV watching Charlotte Dujardin win the gold and the team win the gold. They were all massive inspirations to me.
“To be able, a few years later, to be on the team with them, I can learn so much from them because they are all so experienced. I think that has really helped to bring everything together. We always have such great team spirit. Everyone is really supportive and it’s nice to have teammates who have done it all before and they are also the best in the world.
“Carl is also amazing and a huge inspiration as well. He always creates an amazing team spirit, he’s really fun and really supportive and has so much knowledge as well.”
On the fact that both she and her mother competed alongside Hester at the Olympics, she added: “It is a really special situation, it doesn’t happen that often and it’s really emotional when we are on the team together to think that he was also on the team with my mum. It’s a great feeling be able to carry on her legacy.”
If Dujardin’s performance in London was akin to Last Night of the Proms, Fry was venturing closer to Euro rave as the crowd in Herning was whipped into a frenzy by her freestyle performance.
In the sedate world of dressage, the freestyle lived up to its theme of ‘Best of Britain’ bookended by different versions of the national anthem, via Robbie Williams, the Verve, the Beatles, Genesis and of course, Queen.
We are not worthy Lottie Fry. 👑🤯
— The FEI (@FEI_Global) August 10, 2022
The dressage queen reigns supreme once again as she adds the FEI Dressage World Championship Individual Grand Prix Freestyle to her @Herning2022 Grand Prix Special title. 🙌#ChampionsAsOne #Herning2022 pic.twitter.com/lR71ReC58U
From the opening notes of Another One Bites the Dust, it was clear that this was going to be something special, all the hard work from composer Joost Peters and the deliberations with the team paying off big time.
She added: “It was really cool music, we spent a very long time making the music and deciding what to use and putting it all together. It was great that it all worked and the crowd and the judges loved it. We came up in the beginning with the theme ‘Best of Britain’, so we wanted it to be all really good British music and then we took it from there.
“(Joost) gave us a few ideas and it went back and forth. It took a very long time and a lot of disagreements but it was all worth it in the end.
“I was quite excited when we came up with the idea of having a version of the British national anthem right at the beginning and right at the end. I thought that was really cool, that was probably one of my favourite bits. It was switching from one piece to the next. It’s quite unusual in dressage to have so many different pieces that all sound great together.
“It was amazing and it’s still sinking in. It hardly feels real. It was an incredible feeling and it was a little unexpected. The atmosphere there and the Danish crowds were just nothing like anything I’ve ever ridden in front of before. They were just wild.
“I know that he is an incredible horse and he has so much talent, so of course, I knew it was possible, but for everything to actually come together at the time, on the day, there’s very little chance. It just did, it all came together. Glamourdale really loves those kinds of atmospheres, so when the crowd was getting into it and also loving it, that drove him on to be even better.”
The next target for Fry will be the World Cup series this winter, but unquestionably, her long-term goal is Paris, and more specifically Versailles.
The equestrian events in 2024 will be held in the luxurious setting of the Palace built by Louis XIV back in the 17th century.
And for Fry, there is no question that the moment in her career that set her on the course to the French capital was the decision to move to the Netherlands at 18.
She explained: “My biggest step was when I moved to Holland when I was 18. I’ve been based with the Van Olst family, they have been incredible, they have been training me and I get to ride all their amazing stallions. It’s made it a lot easier with the horses. Since I moved here, it’s got better and better and I’ve had so many amazing opportunities. We worked our way to the top.
“I would say that it was much easier (to move) then, than it is when you get older. I think when you’re younger, it’s much easier to move abroad. Of course it’s daunting and it’s a big thing but everything is really exciting. When you’re 18, you’re up for anything and that’s how I was.”
Eight years on from taking one big step, Fry is on top of the world, creating a legacy of her own.