Dressage-News

Sept. 3, 2024

USA’s Rebecca Hart on Floratina and Fiona Howard on Diamond Dunes won individual gold medals at the Paris Paralympics Tuesday.

Rebecca and the 16-year-old Hanoverian mare Floratina earned a personal best score of 77.900% in Grand Prix Test A (Grade III) and the first gold in the rider’s fifth Paralympics.

The 39-year-old rider competed at the 2008 Beijing Games in Hong Kong, London in 2012, Rio de Janeiro in 2016 Tokyo 2020 where she was on the bronze medal team. She has competed in three World Equestrian Games, most recently winning both a bronze and a silver medal in Tryon in 2018, becoming the first American Para dressage competitor to win a WEG medal. Becca competed in the World Championships in Herning, Denmark in 2022 earning individual and team bronze medals.

She has been national Para Equestrian Champion eight times.

Rebecca is based at Fair Sky Farm in Loxahatchee, Florida where Rowan O’Riley owns Floratina (Fidertanz x Rubina). Jennifer Baumert, a 2019 Pan American Games team and individual medalist, coaches Rebecca.

Fiona Howard on Diamond Dunes, 11-year-old Hanoverian stallion, won individual gold in the Grade II competition on a personal best score of 76.931%.

As an equestrian growing up in England to an American mother and British father, Fiona earned bronze at the 2013 European Reining Championships for Juniors and Young Riders at the age of 14.

However, when she 19 she was diagnosed with dystonia that left her with no control of her limbs and migrated to the United States from Great Britain for treatment at Boston  Children’s Hospital five years ago. She had grown up riding and took up the sport again three years ago while studying psychology at Northeastern University.

Fiona moved to Wellington, Florida to train with Kate Shoemaker, a 2020 Paralympic bronze medalist and on the Paris team. Diamond Dunes is owned by Dressage Family LLC and Hof Kasselmann of Hagen, Germany.

The 25-year-