Dressage-News

June 25, 2025

By KENNETH J. BRADDICK

Laura Graves, absent from top sport for longer than she was in the spotlight as one of the most successful dressage riders in the world, is working with three confirmed Grand Prix horses to help turn around America’s fortunes ahead of next year’s World Championships and the Olympics at home in Los Angeles in 2028.

After a recent Grand Prix, her first in six years, Laura is ready to go.

“You know, you ride that test,” she told dressage-news.com, “and even though there are mistakes, you’re like, ‘man, this is the test, this is the starting point’. So that was really fun to get in there and do that again. And it makes me feel like this is where I belong.”

The ride on Sole Mio an 11-year-old Rhinelander stallion was one of two Big Tour horses now with Laura that had been developed by Emily Miles for owner Leslie Waterman before she decided to go to medical school. Java Dulce, 14-year-old Danish Warmblood, is the other one developed by Emily.

Lider Seven is the third Big Tour mount, an 11-year-old Lusitano stallion that was US Dressage Federation reserve champion in 2024 and recently bought by Raquel Rizzuto, owner of Beauty Central Equestrian Center in Wellington, Florida.

Laura’s coach is six-time Olympian Robert Dover, U.S. team coach when Laura began her breakout on Verdades at Big Tour in 2014, and as the trainer of Raquel was key to Laura’s arrangement to compete Lider Seven.

Laura and “Diddy,” as she calls Verdades, bring more than the official results of Olympic and World Championship medals and the only American ever to rank No. 1 in the world–but also the highest ever scores by an American at the three Grand Prix levels (Grand Prix 81.537% 2018, Special 81.824% 2017), Freestyle 89.083% 2018), achievements that still stand.

“I really, really hope that I can be a part of turning this around before the World Games next year, and before LA that we’re hosting,” said Laura. “that’s the big one. It’s starting right now.”

“But these experiences of qualifying, these experiences of bringing a horse to that point, it’s already happening. You’re already thinking in reverse of where are we going to be, what horse we can make it in the ring. And you can’t do it before you’re ready, because when you’re ready it still is not great. So it’s like you have to be really ready and then you have to be not great and then you’ll get better. So you have to plan all these things and nothing ever goes to plan. So as many horses as we can have in that fire, for everyone, the better. And we need to have our very best riders with great horses, multiple, so we can have world top riders at World Cups and top riders at all of the events.”

U.S. top sport dressage has been a roller coaster since the retirement of Verdades in 2019–silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics led by Sabine Schut-Kery on Sanceo, sixth place at the 2022 World Championships and eliminated at the Paris Games in 2024. The results of the World Championships next year will not impact the U.S. qualifying for LA28 as the host nation automatically gets to start

So how does the U.S. pick itself up?

“It’s a matter, I think, of within each little system,” she said. “Every top rider has their own group. We have our own groups, we have our own owners, and we all really try to stay together. But you have to be willing to commit to the time it takes. You have to be willing to commit to a training system, and then to take another trainer as well. And I think there’s a little bit lack of that transparency within the training where you have to have more than one coach, I believe. Because the same eyes on you all the time, they get used to things So you have that other perspective and it’s also expensive to pay two coaches.”

From her own experience,  “when you go to a show, you know who’s great. You know who’s on form. You know pretty much the same group of people on any horse they’re bringing are going to be in the game. So it’s a fun little thing to track, I guess, with points. But for me, the lists are rather irrelevant because the points are calculated by not necessarily head-to-head competition and not by percentages of how high you score or anything. So there’s a lot of wiggle room in that.

“There’s so much going on around you that you can look at those things and say, I’m still not higher on the rankings or whatever. You can get stuck in the parts that everyone else is looking at. Wow you’re number one in the world. They’re like wow I’m getting you know another great horse and I should be just you know cleaning up next time around and the reality is there’s a lot of work to be done every single day that every single top rider is doing to keep in the game, like we all want to be.

“But again, this is where the subjectivity of our sport is going to play a role every single time. Even to the stewards, you know, with how hot should a horse be allowed to get, how long should you be allowed to warm one up, how much force should you have to use to get the noseband thing through, is the horse’s head up, is the horse’s head down? How tight is that curb chain? All these things that are going on are open to some level of opinion.

“It will all work itself out if people just stay their course, because I truly believe it. And if you have great horses and great owners and great trainers, we’re going to get to where we need to be.

“But you have to stay focused. And I think, you know, you still, even if that horse scored low because it went first, you keep going in. There were days I was riding Diddy and I looked around, he’s the nicest horse here. Why is he not scoring higher?

“And you just keep at it and you feel like you’re gonna quit about 100 times. But you show up the next day you do it again and you spend your weekends at horse shows and you do all these things and eventually you bump up a spot and eventually someone sees you and you bump up another spot and you keep repeating. It’s the consistency that catches people’s eye.

“It’s not just one test it’s saying ‘okay, I did that one test. It was an 80% but I only scored a 68′. And I have to do it again until they believe me’. Someone notices and then you start kind of working your way up and then it’s a little easier to stay in that top tier. You know, then they give you some free points when you didn’t really earn them, and you take them because you weren’t given them in the beginning.”

Laura has advice for riders and owners improving dressage when she hears: “Hey, I’m really doing terribly. “I need lessons, and committing to that process of having coaches… you need to always be uncomfortable.

“If you’re not constantly trying to fix your riding then you know what you’re doing? You’re not gonna get any better.”

Laura knows from her own experience of buying Verdades as a youngster and initially developing the horse in her home state of Vermont. Then opting to move to Florida to end up being coached personally by Debbie McDonald, an Olympic and world championship medalist and first of only two Americans to become World Cup champion and regarded as one of the finest trainers.

“It’s a tough thing trusting that process and then saying, okay, but the judges aren’t seeing me get any better. And you’re feeling it get better. And so then you try to change something. And how do you know when, I mean,that’s the sport though, right?

“I don’t know, but I think the true reflection of knowing that we need some leadership, but until we have that, that we have to have it within ourselves to guide ourselves on the path that we know is right. Sort of tough doing it on your own, though.

“It is not typical for a new top rider to pop up. It’s a very weird it’s a trickle. Top riders… they stay on top with the horses that they bring because that’s who they are. It might not even be a better horse, it is their system and their drive and that is what sets them apart that’s why you see the same riders who have a pipeline of horses of course.”

Why has Laura not had a pipeline until now?

“I think I’m very private,” she explained. “That second-ranked trainer what they have over me is that they are on social media and they are posting. And, you know, they make people feel warm and fuzzy. And I avoid everybody and go back to the barn. And it’s really tough for me because that part shouldn’t be important. And so I’m grateful for people who understand that part of it.

“But for a lot of owners, and maybe they’re not owners for me, they want to be mentioned they want to be on social media all the time. And I just like, wow I think even I’ve won medals in places and I can’t tell you that I always took to social media. It might be barn life at home and those sorts of things, but sharing, because I’m so critical of myself, I could watch any performance that I’ve ever done and just not want to watch it.

“In the moment you’re going, I kind of watched my test, I watched it fast forward. It’s like, okay. Cause then when you get on again you can do something different. So I think being so critical of myself restricts a little bit that personality. And I’m okay with that right now. It will continue to grow when it’s time.

“And I do have a small pipeline and I’m hopeful that within the next year, we are really in full swing.”

Part 3: Dealing with Current State of Dressage