‘He loves that arena’ Lottie Fry battles back from a piaffe wobble to secure British World Championships silver
A piaffe misunderstanding threatened to derail Lottie Fry and Glamourdale’s grand prix, but a big finish secured the silver medal for the British team. Here’s how the test unfolded, in Lottie's own words
Lottie Fry and Glamourdale scored 80.31% to secure silver for Britain at the 2026 Dressage World Championships
Before Lottie went in, the picture in the race for silver was clear. Denmark’s total was locked in at 229.426, after Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour’s 82.376% made Nadja Aaboe Sloth’s score the team’s discard. This was the highest score of the championship so far, and enough to put Cathrine provisionally top of the individual leaderboard, pending Lottie and Isabell’s rides. As Becky Moody and Carl Hester’s scores counted for Britain, that meant Lottie needed more than 78.29% to keep Britain ahead of Denmark and secure silver.
Lottie herself wasn’t thinking about any of it. “No, actually, I had no idea,” she said, when asked if she’d known beforehand what she needed to hit silver. “I just really wanted to do everything we could.”
Lottie and Glamourdale looked in good form in the warm-up and breezed through the first few movements in style, scoring eights and nines. “I think that's the best feeling I’ve ever had in a test with him,” she said. “He was on fire. He was listening, he was calm and on the aid and relaxed, yet so sharp and with me the whole way.”
Some old issues re-emerged in the first and second piaffe, which knocked his score back, leaving the pair hovering around the 76% mark towards the end of the trot work.
Lottie Fry’s grand prix nail-biter
“I just kind of threw him into that first piaffe, which was a shame – it was a bit of a misunderstanding," Lottie explained. “It’s such a fine line. Everything is such tiny little aids, and just one tiny wrong thing, wrong timing, and it doesn’t come off perfectly.”
It was turning into a bit of a nail-biter – Glamourdale can always bank on getting some marks back in the canter work, and he did climb back up, towards 79%. But could he hold it together for the double-marked piaffe on the final centre line? Yes, he could, and Lottie was able to show off some of the work she’s put into the movement ever since the issue emerged last season.
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“We’ve been just building his confidence with it, really, and letting him learn to travel forwards, and become really strong and happy in it,” she said. “It’s always been there – it’s just about finding the right aids in the ring to show it off to its best.
"The piaffe I think we showed on the last centre line was one of his strong points. He’s become much stronger and much more confident in it, and when he does it well, he does it incredibly. Everything else, I don’t really think it can be better. He’s just incredible – he seems to be in a really good place this week. He loves that arena, and it’s going to be so exciting to ride in there again [in the special] on Friday.”
Whatever the final colour of the medal, she was adamant it would be a result to be proud of. “Any medal is amazing to win at a World Championships,” she said. “Becky had a difficult ride yesterday, but she did everything she could and really still pulled it out of the bag for us. And this morning, Carl was so inspiring – every time you’re surprised at how amazing he is riding a test, it was just beautiful to watch.”
In the final reckoning, the British team finished on 231.445 – 2.02 points clear of Denmark’s 229.426, but 3.62 points short of Germany’s gold-medal-winning 235.063. It came down exactly as the maths suggested it might: Isabell Werth, going last for Germany, rode Wendy de Fontaine to 79.88% – close enough to her season average that Lottie's recovery back to 80.31% was never quite enough to close a gap that size.
There’ll be some disappointment for the British team that gold slipped away, but it’s hard to begrudge the Germans on home soil – they were always going to take some stopping. There were twists and turns enough for a dozen team competitions, but when the dust settled, the final placings felt about right.
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Oscar joined Horse & Hound in October 2023 and is the magazine’s dressage editor and sports manager, overseeing coverage of equestrian sport. After studying equine science at Myerscough College, he spent four years working for leading dressage rider Emile Faurie, competing at the 2015 National Dressage Championships and travelling with the yard to CDIs including Aachen and Saumur. He holds a master’s degree in Literature from York St John University (2021).